All About Plays

We went to the theatre to watch Pinocchio as part of a Home Education group (school rate, i.e. discount tickets!) - this was the girls' first proper experience watching a play (I took them to a small performance at the MAC a couple of years ago which they don't remember!) so I decided to make plays the focus of our Literacy work for a few weeks. Before going to see the play, I showed the girls what a script looked like (I had bought the book Play Time by Julia Donaldson secondhand online with this theme in mind!) and we read through some together, dividing the parts between us. We talked about the layout differing from the stories they were used to reading, the focus on characters' dialogue and the use of stage directions to set the scene. Whilst reading through, I encouraged the girls to try and get into character by putting on an appropriate voice, too!

The Old Rep emailed us an educational pack when we booked the tickets, so after we had seen the play I chose the activities I thought relevant and printed them into an A4 booklet along with a couple of activities of my own. 😄 We then worked through the booklet together in the weeks following the performance.

1) We talked about the meaning of the words plot and synopsis and recapped the meanings of the words character and setting, linking the latter to the words location and scene. Then we read through the synopsis provided and underlined all the character names with one colour and the different locations (i.e. scene changes) with another.

It worked out that each paragraph in the synopsis equated to a new scene, so once we'd finished reading through (I read through at a steady pace while they concentrated on underlining!) we checked to see if any settings hadn't been mentioned where a scene change had taken place, then they wrote (e.g. "toy shop") next to the corresponding paragraph.

2) We completed this task verbally and had a discussion about the themes behind the play and what we liked/disliked about it.

3) They wrote the word actor/actress next to the pictures of the main cast members, and we discussed the differences between "cast", "character" and "actor/actress" in a play.

Because Pinocchio (a boy!) was played by an actress, the girls were confused over whether she was an actor or actress! Which sparked an interesting conversation into gender. 👌

They also learnt what an understudy was, since one was listed in the cast list.

4) One of the given activities was to make up nonsense words by rolling a dice. (This was a good introduction to possibility and chance - a topic we've not yet covered in Numeracy!) So the task was to make up a definition to a two-syllable nonsense word. When they were done creating 3 words, I asked them to then write a sentence or two using their made up words in context.

5) We talked about how costumes and props are used to help tell the story and make the audience feel like they're really there without needing to use their imagination. Then they had a go at designing their own costumes for two of the characters.

6) I modified our book review sheet to a review specifically for plays for the girls to fill in. I summarised the play again for them by skim reading through the synopsis and we went through each box in turn together so we could discuss the keywords and check they understood their meanings.

You can download a copy of the worksheet here.

7) Using the activity sheet as a scaffold, the girls made up their own outline to a story based in the world of Pinocchio. Once all the components were in place, they took it in turns to dictate their story to me as I wrote it down (I was more interested in their creative writing abilities than handwriting/spelling/etc. for this task) and prompted them with vocabulary choices when they became stuck.

8) Using their stories above, I helped each twin in turn to turn what they had created into a script for a play. So they read through their individual story and I prompted them with what the characters would say at each point and how the audience could know what the character was thinking... I did the typing and formatting for them because, again, this wasn't the focus of the task.

Once they were both done, we read through another play by Julia Donaldson from her book, Play Time. When we had finished, I asked the girls if there was anything missing from their scripts compared to the one we had just read - and they both correctly identified the answer to be stage directions! So, again in turns, I helped them both add the extra detail needed to complete their plays.

9) We watched the film The Wizard of Oz (we happened to have the free Amazon Prime trial at the time and this film was included on Prime Video) and talked about the similarities to the Pinocchio play we watched: cast members, costumes, props, backdrops, scene changes, singing and dancing, etc. So some films are similar to theatre productions (not all have songs!) except they're filmed to watch later, rather than live (i.e. happening at the time), so they can add special effects and they can retake a scene and try again if they make a mistake or to make it the best they can.

10) So now we had two play scripts, it made sense to put on a performance of our own! First, we read through the plays and made a list of props/costumes we'd need to make or find (a top hat & stick, masks for the animals, a magic wand, a boat prop & paintbrush, blue fairy's cloak). Then they divided up the parts between them (and their younger sister for the Blue Fairy!) and practised reading through their lines for each play in turn. We decided to do both plays because they were only short and it wouldn't be fair otherwise. 😂 After a few rehearsals and a dress rehearsal (we talked about learning lines, how difficult it was and the extra pressure of theatre performances since they were live!), we recorded their performance for them to watch back (like a film!) and so they could self-critique what they did well and how they could improve. Finally, they put on their two mini plays for my parents (since they were visiting) and then Papa (who came home later) to watch live. 😁😁

And that brought us to the end of the topic! 👏👏👏

If I can find and familiarise myself with a suitable program (maybe Movie Maker?) then we might use their play recordings to add background music and special effects as a way of incorporating ICT to the topic... We'll see, insha'Allah!