How To Teach Children To Read And Write

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1 TEACHERS RESOURCE PACK This teacher s pack is kindly supported by ESSAR OIL UK

2 This pack aims to support children s appreciation and engagement with the Teacher Resource Pack This pack aims to support children s appreciation and engagement with the ideas in STATIk supporting literacy, speaking and listening, emotional literacy and imaginative thinking. The creative activities are also designed to help build confidence. For more information or if you would like to discuss any of the activities in this pack, please do get in touch, we would be very happy to discuss ways in which classroom activity can enhance your children s theatre experience. Contact information is provided at the back of this pack STATIk Synopsis It s Mikey s first day at work, wearing his brand new uniform he joins the signal-fixing team, preparing radio s and tuning them in, but when a rogue signal, the voice of a child is mysteriously picked up, it begins to bring about the hilarious destruction of the factory regime. Themes Friendship, loneliness, peer pressure, pressure to succeed and achieve, the status quo, fitting in, individuality, feelings, coping with change.

3 SPEAKING, LISTENING & DRAMA ACTIVITIES Curriculum Links: English Listening, Drama / Physical Education Key Vocabulary: Tableaux / images / expressions / body language /conflict To encourage pupils to: Develop communication skills, build confidence, develop an understanding of story structure and to respond imaginatively to the characters and story What do you remember from the story? Ask the children what they remember from the story of STATIk. These can be images, interactions, moments. Collect as many different responses as possible, this can be quite scattergun and doesn t have to be chronological or detailed. You could write these down on a big piece of paper and ask the children to choose their favourite bit. TABLEAUXS - What happened at the beginning, middle and end? Steer the discussion so that the children become aware of the narrative development of the story focusing on the beginning, middle and end. Ask the children to work in small groups and to make 3 tableauxs or frozen pictures showing 1) the beginning, 2) the middle and 3) the end. Gather the children as an audience and ask each group to present back to the rest of the class. The children presenting should be frozen like statues as if the image they are presenting is a photograph. Ask the audience to describe what they see. Look for the detail in each presentation.

4 What did each of the characters WANT? Introduce the names of the characters and the idea that all characters in plays WANT something. Working in small groups, ask the children to come up with their own ideas about what each of the characters wants. You could give one of the characters to each of the groups to report back on or ask each group to consider all of the characters. Mikey - the central (new) character. It s his first day at the factory. WANTS - To fit in, to play, to make friends, his sweets! The Authority - the voice at the end of the phone (who we never see). WANTS -To make sure everyone follows the rules Middle one - the character that keeps getting into trouble with Mikey. She has 2 medals. WANTS -To get 3 medals, to be liked Top dog - the character who is in charge of the other 2. She has 3 medals and a clip board. WANTS - to be the best, to get 4 medals, to please the authority Discuss how characters wanting different things can cause conflict and can also be funny! HOT SEAT Gather the class as an audience and place a chair in front, as if on stage. Ask someone to volunteer to choose one of the characters. Like Twenty Questions, the audience do not know which character has been picked and are then allowed to ask questions of them until they determine who they are. Impose a few restrictions; Limit the number of questions that the group can ask to try and reveal the characters identity. If the identity of the character is revealed quickly the exercise can be continued so that both group and actor can enjoy exploring the character more consciously and explore reason and understanding.

5 ART, DESIGN & LITERACY ACTIVITIES KS 1&2 curriculum links: EN1/ English Speaking & Listening/Drama, PSHE, Art and Design & Technology Key Vocabulary: Visual art, perspective & points of view, objects, emotions, To encourage pupils to: Respond imaginatively to the story, communicate their understanding of the storyline and imaginative responses through discussion, visual art/drawing and creative writing. A picture paints a thousand words STATIK is a story told without any words (apart from the voices that come through the radio). Ask the children to consider why we chose to tell the story this way? Introduce the STATEMENT above to the children and get them to discuss what it means. Which objects? Using paper, colouring pencils or crayons, ask the children to draw 3 of the most important things/objects in the story of STATIk and to write the name of the object next to the drawing. EG - Radio, Factory, boiler suit, Mikey, telephone, chute, easter egg, lunch box, astronaut, fan, box, sweets... Create a gallery on a wall or on the floor and ask each child to present their picture.

6 Perspectives Ask the children to write a paragraph about the day that Mikey came to the factory from the perspective of any one of the objects. Encourage the children to imagine that inanimate objects in stories can be characters with thoughts and feelings and that they might see the story from their own point of view. How did the events of that day affect the radio? The chute? The bag of sweets? Create an advert for the story Using paper, coloured pencils or paints, ask the children to draw an advert for the story using some key words and objects. Ask the children to use the title word STATIk and discuss what this word means, introducing the concept of noise, frequency and interference etc. Can the children draw STATIK noise coming out of the radio?

7 WHICH WORDS - FEELINGS? ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT EMOTIONAL LITERACY KS 1&2 curriculum links: EN1/ English Speaking & Listening/Drama, PSHE and citizenship Key Vocabulary: Emotions /wisdom/ broadcast/body language/individuality/peer pressure To encourage pupils to: Use speaking and listening skills, develop emotional literacy, explore unseen aspects of characters from the show. Name that feeling, show that feeling Ask the children to brainstorm a list of FEELINGS that were felt by any of the characters in the story. How could they tell what the character was feeling just by watching them? What do we mean by the term body language? Place a chair in front of the class and ask for a volunteer to sit in the chair and show an emotion just by the way they are sitting and by their facial expression. Let the rest of the class guess what the emotion is. Examples of emotions felt by the characters in STATIk - fear, sadness, happiness, anger, frustration, loneliness, depression, hope. The moment when Get the children to describe a moment when one of the characters felt something in the story. Using pens and paper ask each child to write a sentence where an emotion was felt, as follows - Name of character felt emotion when describe situation/action. Example - Mikey felt sad when the radio was put down the chute

8 WHICH WORDS - FEELINGS? Children s wisdom Explain that the children s voices that were heard through the radio were all bits of wisdom designed to help the characters in the story. The characters had something to learn from what the voices had to say. One of the wisdoms that we heard is... there is only one of you... Ask the children to discuss in small groups what this might mean and why is it hard to be yourself sometimes? Radio broadcast - a voice from the radio Ask the children to write a special message or piece of advice or wisdom which could come out of the special radio. Collect all the messages on individual bits of paper and put them in a hat or container, ask for a volunteer to come and pick one and read one out. You could read out one wisdom a day for the whole month.

9 Review Competition Curriculum LinksEnglish, Citizenship A review is a short report that describes a play to people who haven't seen it. It will tell people what was good or bad about all the different parts of the show e.g. acting, lighting, costumes and the way the stories have been told. Ask the children to share their experience with us and they could win family theatre tickets. There are prizes for the three best reviews received. Children could - Think about all the theatrical elements - acting, lighting, sound & music, set design, story. Describe what the production is about, thinking about what the main themes are and what moments in the play have stayed in their minds What their favourite part of the show was and why How they felt after watching the performance If there was anything that they didn't like or that was confusing If the venue was comfortable and welcoming If the rest of the audience seemed to like the performance If they would recommend the show to friends or family If Action Transport Theatre did a good job creating a quality show for children Reviews don t need to be long; the most important thing is that the children have thought about and commented on all of the different parts that go into making the show. Encourage your children not to just write It was good or It was bad, encourage them to tell us why it was good or bad, scary or happy, funny or sad. Send us your reviews by March 1st!

10 CONTACT DETAILS For more info or to discuss the activities in the pack- Nina Hajiyianni, Artistic Director For info about ATT and our projects - Jess Egan, Project Manager jess@actiontransporttheatre.org / #STATIk Facebook: ActionTransportTheatre Flickr: actiontransporttheatre/ Action Transport Theatre Whitby Hall Stanney Lane Ellesmere Port Cheshire CH65 9AE Office number: ATT Teachers Resource Packs kindly supported by ESSAR Oil UK