Definition
Improvised role play is often for pairs or small groups of children. Collective Storytelling is also improvised, but it involves larger groups and can even involve the whole class. The children work together on the telling of the story. This strategy can be approached in various ways:
- Storytelling: the children can sit in a circle and can add to the story a sentence (or a word) at a time. They can add in actions and characters as the story progresses. They tell the story from the start to the end, in their own words. You could have small groups of 2-3, all the way up to larger groups of 20 or 30.
- Re-enactment: the children can sit in a circle creating a space in the centre. A lead adult or confident child acts as the storyteller. When a character is introduced, one of the children from the circle steps into the space to become the character. The performance unfolds as the characters interact with each other, building on what their peers say and do.
Some roles are ‘safe’ where children may become inanimate objects with no speaking required. Other roles will be characters from the story. Some children will throw themselves into the acting and do the speaking without prompting. Others will need the lead adult/adult to suggest their lines and they can then mime or repeat those lines. After a few minutes of enacting the story, the children on stage are told to ‘Clear the stage!’ and a new group of children continue the story. This allows the lead adult/adult to move from one scene to another and give all of the children a turn.
The lead adult/adult may;
- begin by setting the scene and establishing the basic facts such as providing a simple starting point. For example, introducing a character, a place, or an issue.
- Provide props or objects to base the story upon.
Purpose
- To recall sequence of events
- To revisit key vocabulary
- To encourage fluency in speaking
- To act out a character, showing emotion ready for writing using ‘show-don’t-tell’
Example
Telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood as group might sound like this:
Child 1: Once upon a time there was a little girl called Little Red Riding Hood.
Child 2: One day, her mother gave her a basket of cakes to take to Grandma who was sick in bed.
Child 3: Mum said “Stay on the path
Example 2:
Re-enacting the story of Little Red Riding Hood might sound like this:
Lead adult: Once upon a time there was a little girl (I need a girl) who lived in a house (I need 4 people to make a house) in the woods (I need 5 trees). Her mother gave her a basket of cakes to take to Grandma. (I need a mother – give your daughter a basket of cakes!) Little Red Riding took the cakes and said goodbye to her mother. (Say goodbye!) She went skipping off down the path. (Off you go.) As she left, her mother called out “Watch out for the wolf. Don’t go off the path!” (Can you say that?) Little Red Riding Hood nodded and skipped away. Clear the stage!
