Reflection #5

What: This past week in class we learned more about process drama. We were able to experience activities and learn about different children's books.  I really enjoyed watching/listening the group presentations because I was able to learn about different books, but I was also able to see how the groups incorporated fun, interesting activities into the text.  For example, one class was talking about the Holocaust and how people were crammed into cargo trains.  Each person would only have enough room to stand still.  They did not have room to stretch their arms, legs, nothing.  For their activity they had made a box with tape on the floor and told all of us that we had to fit into the box.  The box represented the cargo trains that people crammed into.  Doing this activity gave me a small dose of what it was like for Jews during the Holocaust.  

So What: In my future classroom I would like to implement as many drama things as possible.  I would love to use activities to help explain certain lessons because children (as well as adults) learn so much better when the lessons are visual.  

Now What: Doing these drama activities in class has really made me see the importance of art, especially drama.  I came home after class last week and told my husband that "I feel like I'm finding my inner drama-self."  I love that we've been able to do fun activities and things where we aren't sitting at our tables for hours.  In preparing to implement drama into my future classroom, I will continue to participate as much as possible in class now.  I really think it's important that each one of us students (in the EL Ed program) become confident in ourselves and be able to act silly, and act out of our comfort zones at times.  I'm really excited to practice these activities someday soon!