Teaching Through Theater

Teaching Through Theater programs are weeklong lessons, in which First Stage Teaching Artists visit individual classrooms on two separate occasions during the week.  Classroom teachers are supplied with comprehensive lesson plans to continue the learning experience between visits. 

The cost is $350 for the first classroom; $300 for each subsequent classroom

Teaching Through Theater programs include:

Bully Ban (grades K-8)
Bullying is an increasingly serious concern in our schools and can take on many forms.  First Stage's Bully Ban Workshop examines the different forms of bullying that occur in the school community, while working to promote respect and tolerance among classmates and teach tactics in problem solving, positive conflict resolution and overcoming obstacles.
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LANGUAGE ARTS

A School of Fish Stays Together (grades K4-1)
Join Swimmy as he travels through the ocean meeting new creatures who teach him important skills in teamwork.

Letter Detectives (grades 4K-1)
Students become detectives in this mystery of the lost letters as they discover specific letters missing from words in all the picture books throughout the classroom. Students work together to sound out letters, discover words that rhyme, and eventually put the words in the books back together.

Frog and Toad (grades K5-2)
Using story drama, students act out the adventures of Frog and Toad and explore elements of friendship, theater and narrative story structure.

Fractured Fairytales (grades 1-3)
Students explore story structure, character relationships, and sequencing in familiar fairytale stories and turn these tales upside down by creating and acting out new endings to old favorites.

Differences (grades 2-3)
Students experience the importance of accepting differences in others with the help of Zink the Zebra and Dr. Seuss's beloved story The Sneetches.

Super Creative Writing! (grades 3-5)
Students will create and become their own Super Heroes, all while exploring adjectives, verbs, prepositions and other rules of grammar, along with different writing styles in this action-packed workshop! Students will devise and play out adventures of protagonist heroes and antagonist villains and write their own Super Hero comic adventures!

Purely Poetry (grades 6-8)
Through activities involving music, movement, visual art and dramatic devising, students will explore a multitude of styles of poetry, from rhyming verse to free verse, while looking at some of the great poets of our time. Students will make interpretations, create their own poetry, and develop a personal connection to this artistic style of writing.

 

SOCIAL STUDIES/HISTORY

The Oregon Trail (grades 3-4)
Working in family groups, students plan their journey and then set off on the Oregon trail. In order to survive they must work together to solve the many problems that arise for these pioneers.

Immigration (grades 4-5)
Students explore immigration through dramatic role playing--from the reasons people left their homes behind to their travels in steerage, from the dreams of America to their arrival at Ellis Island.

Colonial America (grades 5-6)
Beginning in a colonial classroom, students experience life through a colonist's eyes.  Through process drama, the class will make decisions about their future as a colony, search for British spies, and explore the Boston Tea Party and its consequences.

The Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. (grades 6-8)
Students will have the opportunity to learn about and develop a deeper understanding of this important time in history through dramatic explorations of significant events and influential people of the Civil Rights Movement including Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.


SCIENCE

Our Stellar Solar System (grades K5-2)
Students will learn about space travel, explore the different planets in our solar system, and discover how Earth differs from the other planets using the story of The Magic School Bus:  Lost in the Solar System.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (grades 3-4)
Students participate in a dramatic journey to the center of the earth. Along the way they must work together to solve problems including the identification of the various layers of the earth and it's corresponding types of rocks and minerals.

 

Invention Convention (grades 3-5)
Students become fantastic inventors from around the world. They are asked to convene in order to aid in the development of a museum of invention. Suddenly a mystery ensues and they must learn how to apply simple physics in order to solve the dilemma!