Reader's+Theatre+Reflections

January 19, 2011 Today my group went to the MUECC for our literacy activity with the preschool children. Our book is //A House for Hermit Crab//. Because the crab is searching for a new home and decorates it along the way, we decided to talk about where people live and have the children decorate their own houses. We took two "houses" made of posterboard and some stickers, cut outs, crayons, and markers. We told the children they could choose want they wanted to decorate their homes and could color, etc. We split up into two groups. My group started with only one child, expanded to two, and had one other pop in briefly. The first child, G, was very quiet but methodical about his choice of decorations. He knew all of the colors of the stickers and seemed to enjoy quietly sticking and coloring. The second child, M, had fun with his activity, but in a different way. He first began placing the rocket stickers on the "house" in a neat row. Then he decided to pull them off and tear them up. We tried to redirect him, but he would not be swayed. The "bad guys" were doing it. At least he was using his imagination. Another child, L, came in at the end and placed a flower cut out on the house. She had been in the other group and decided she wanted to contribute to ours. "That's all," she said. We really enjoyed spending time with the children and talking with them about the book and about how different animals and people live in different types of homes. When the group after ours came back to our Jenkins Hall classroom, they told us that our activity/book had caused the children to want to focus on ocean play after we left. We are glad they enjoyed it and continued to expand on what we talked about!
 * Literacy Activity**

February 2, 2011

Our class reader's theatre was presented on January 31. 2011. Our group presented //A House for Hermit Crab//. We created costumes for ourselves that the children could wear for their participation. When the day started, the children spent quite a bit of time on the science activities. It was fun to watch their reactions and hear their comments about what they were doing with the Hermit Crab activity. Some children had been to the beach, and others had not. When it was time for our presentation, we donned our costumes and went through our script. As we feared, when it was time for the children to do their parts, they all wanted to be the crab or stand in the shell! As Prof. Jeffers suggested in class, we should have just put a costume over their heads instead of asking them what they wanted to be. Most of the children seemed very tired by the time they got to our play, and most did not want to say their "lines". One little boy, however, attentively repeated his lines as the crab. I was very impressed with his attention span and his recall of what was being read to him. He seemed very interested in the whole process. As some suggested in class, I think it might be better to break these activities into two days/two books a day. That might cut down on the children getting tired. //Over in the Ocean// was the hit of the day, with the children really enjoying that entire presentation and how they were able to participate.