Reflection #3: Drama

I'll admit, when I first heard we were doing drama as a section I was a little taken back.  I am not the drama type at all, and because of that I wondered  how I was going to apply that to my classroom, or if I'd even want to apply it.  But I have to say, after this unit, I am converted, and will 100% use drama activities in my classroom for many different topics and as often as I can.  In class we learned lots of different activities, such as the mirroring activities, the Story as One, the Alphabet Story, and reading childrens books and adding activities like the Decision Alley.  I learned that drama can bring things to life.  It can help students connect with what they are learning so that it's not just about some people, somewhere, some time ago.  It also helps students remember things.  They are more likely to remember what they are learning if they are up and about doing something that helps them interacte with learning.  I feel that students need drama in the classroom.  As teachers we want to create the best students and future adults we can, and if we use drama in the classroom it will help them make connection and really learn what they are supposed to know.  With drama they are not just learning facts about a person, they are, for a moment, becoming that person.  They can feel what that person felt, think what that person thought, and experience what that person experienced.  It is such an important thing to have in the classroom.

I really liked this group project for drama.  I think it is a fun way to really incorporate drama activities and history into a classroom.  It really brings the story to life, and it makes it fun. Stories, especially picture books, already bring stories to life, but by applying what students know already from their lessons in class and having them do interactive lessons it can really bring it to life and connect it to the student.  I learned that it's not hard to incorporate this types of things into lessons.  I would think it would take a lot of time and thought, and while it did take some preparation, it was not nearly as extensive as I thought, and it was enjoyable.  I liked watching the other groups and seeing that there are so many different ideas out there.  They presented a lot of different things we can do that I hadn't even thought of.  I felt that our group worked very well together.  We divided the work and all did our part.  It was a little stressful because one of our group members didn't show up on the day of the presentation and we weren't aware, but she had put in her part as far as the handout and we were able to work around it in our presentation.  From doing the presentation I learned that drama and story reading can be fun and interactive and I'm excited to do it in my own class!