"Querido Santa"🎅 Festival de Navidad de Infantil🎄

Este año decidí escribir una obra original para nuestra tradicional Festival de Navidad de Infantil en mi colegio. Todos los años buscamos una obra de teatro para enlazar las actuaciones de las diferentes clases de Educación Infantil. Entonces, mi idea era buscar cartas graciosas, bonitas y originales de niños y niñas de todo el mundo, escritos a Santa Claus.

Aquí comparto el guión y los vídeos de la actuación completo de "Querido Santa", por si alguien se anima a utilizarlo en su colegio...

Guión "Querido Santa"


Escena 1


Escena 2

Escena 3

Escena 4

Escena 5

Escena 6

¡Feliz Navidad!
🎅☃❄🌟🦌🎄🎁🔔

 

The Jungle Book

This year my end of year show with 6º Primary was "The Jungle Book". It was an interesting story to do because it's been portrayed in several different formats both for the stage and the big screen. Obviously, the students were most familiar with Disney movies, which gave them a good understanding of the story. As they are somewhat different to Rudyard Kipling's original books, it was a good opportunity to share with them parts of the book, and learn more about the characters and the underlying themes and metaphors.
One of the biggest challenges was finding parts for all 63 students, but from reading the original Jungle Book stories I was able to incorporate more animals and characters into the show.

 The stage design was an enjoyable part of the show, as being set in the Indian Jungle, there seemed to be so many ideas and possibilities to decorate the stage.

At the end of the 3rd term, they performed the show twice, to the rest of primary and then to their families. They were a success and the students certainly enjoyed their moment in the spotlight! 

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

This year one of my most ambitious projects was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" with my 4º Primary class. It is the first time that I attempted to do a show like this with such a young group. Previously, I had only put on show with 5º and 6º Primaria, and there is definitely a big difference from one year group to another in terms of maturity, reading ability and their level of English.
However, it was a group of students that I've known since Infants and I was confident we could pull it off.
In September, I introduced them to the script and its format, and we slowly started picking it apart. Once we were familiar with the story and the language, we quickly organised who would play each part, and took it to the stage.

One of the most difficult things for them to learn is the stage movement; the entrances and exits, positioning their bodies correctly to face the audience, and their movements whilst on stage. I was impressed by how quickly they all learnt their lines, which made rehearsals much more effective, and I was able to slowly help them improve the fluidity of the show.

When they finally performed it for their peers and families they were bursting with confidence, and they did a really great job. 

How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

This school year I had the chance to teach Drama to a 2ºESO group, which was a new challenge for me. Previously, I had only taught Primary classes, and I usually stuck to more classic stories. However, with this group they were happy to try something different, so we began working on "How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse".

The show is a parody comedy and is something my students had never done before. I had worked with them 2 years before on Peter Pan, but this show required much more practice and rehearsals to get the timing of the comedy right.

One of the interesting things with the show was the set. Making a post-apocalyptic stage design ending up being less difficult than I originally expected. Using old stuff that I managed to find around the school, and some Police tape from Amazon, we created a fairly convincing scene.

The students found the script challenging in parts but little by little, as they began to understand the dynamic of each scene they were able to bring it altogether into a fantastic show, which I think they really enjoyed.

Stone Soup // Sopa de Piedras

Last week at school I was asked to present a show for our infant students as part of our Día de los Idiomas, Languages Day. Apart from English and Spanish being the primary languages in our school, students also have the opportunity to learn French, German and Chinese. Therefore, every year we celebrate Languages Day, with the objective of demonstrating our students´ability to use each language.

Stone Soup

This year, I decided to adapt an old folk story, Stone Soup, into a bilingual version. The story follows two Americans, walking El Camino de Santiago, when they stop in a small village in Asturias. The Americans speak to some of the villagers in English, and they translate what is said to the other villagers in Spanish, therefore telling the story in both languages at the same time.
You can see a copy of the script by clicking here or on the image above.

TESOL Spain Conference 2019

Last week I was given the opportunity to give a presentation at the annual TESOL Spain Convention 2019, in my home town Oviedo. I was also honoured to be awarded the Robin de Andrés Grant, which I decided to donate to clowns.org. My presentation was titled "Theatre in the Classroom", in which I talked about how theatre can help students learn and improve their English.

As part of my presentation I also invited 7 of my students from 6º primary, 1ºESO and 3ºESO to act out scenes from shows that they have performed over the last few years, including The Wizard of Oz, The Jungle Book and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was thrilled to be able to present to a full room of about 60 people, who enjoyed watching these young students perform with such passion. 

I was able to share some of my experiences during my presentation, hopefully presenting a strong case for the presence of Drama as core subject in the school curriculum in Spain. Over the last few years I have seen my students gain invaluable experience performing in English. The shows have helped them gain confidence speaking English in front of an audience, given them responsibility, exposed them to a wider range of vocabulary and structures, and most importantly, given them a memorable experience that will stay with them forever. 

For me, it was a fantastic experience being a speaker at a TESOL Spain Convention for the first time and I hope to be able to contribute more to the TESOL community in the future.

Teaching Drama: Autumn lesson plan

Here's a new drama class that I really enjoyed doing with Year 1 and 2 of Primary; Autumn and Scarecrows. Most of the students have been learning English at school since they were 3 years old, so by this time they have a very good understanding and are starting to gain confidence speaking.

Drama lesson: Autumn and Scarecrows

The lesson starts off with a quick discussion about the different things that happen in Autumn. I try and teach them as much new vocabulary as possible, and consolidate any words they already know. I like to talk about how they feel in autumn, what we see and how things change, and the typical things that we see and do during this time of year.

This leads my nicely onto the second part, where we look at scarecrows; what they are and what they do. I show them a short clip of the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, and then we sing and dance "Dingly-dangly Scarecrow". 

After that, I read them the story "Scarecrow's Wedding" by Julia Donaldson. It's a fantastic story and is beautifully illustrated and always seems to capture their attention.

To finish the class (if I have time), I like to teach them the song "Nut Tree", also by Julia Donaldson. It's a nice song which has simple actions and is the perfect to finish the class.

Halloween Dance Party

As part of my school's halloween celebration this year, we decided to do a Halloween Disco.  So, I prepared a Halloween Dance Party presentation using Google Slides. I compiled all of the Halloween Just Dance videos and put them together in a way that lets me pick and choose the dances as we go.

Halloween Dance Party

Feel free to use it, and let me know how it went in the comments section. 

Happy Halloween!

Teaching Drama: Witches lesson plan

I teach drama to all primary levels, so from the ages 6 to 12. The groups that are the most fun to teach, but also the most challenging, are the youngest groups. With 1º and 2º primaria I like to chose themes for each lesson and use different resources related to that theme. As we are close to Halloween, I chose to do a lesson about Witches. 
Luckily, in my school we have a projector in every class, therefore I am able to connect my laptop and use my Google Apps for Education tools. My favourite app for drama classes is Slides as I can use images, videos and music, plus decorate the slides according to the theme.

Witches drama class

The classes in my school last 50 minutes, so my plans are normally made for this time range. In this lesson plan, I start off with a quick discussion about the theme to see what ideas and vocabulary they already know. To accompany the question asking how witches talk, I added a video with a witch's laugh, and when I ask them what stories they know with witches in I get all kinds of responses from different programmes, so I added a video of the witch scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (which surprisingly most them haven't seen).

After that, I love to read them "Room on the Broom" by Julia Donaldson. It's a fantastic rhyming story which is easy for them to understand and participate. After I've read it, we learn the "Room on the Broom song" and I get them to become the different animals and characters in the story.

Finally, I love finishing my classes with Just Dance choreographies, and there is a perfect one called "Magic Halloween" with a Witch and her black cat.