Product Description

Children love to pretend, and dramatic play is the perfect environment for children to practice and apply literacy concepts. Whether they decide to be firefighters, to open a pet store, or to have a tea party, children will increase their vocabulary, communicate with their peers, and learn to recognize environmental print--all important skills for prereaders. Literacy Play is chock-full of creative dramatic play activities that teach important pre-reading skills while bringing children's imaginations to life!

Amy Cox has been a supervising teacher in the Melba S. Lehner Children's School at Weber State University for the past nine years.

Sherrie West is a mentor teacher for Head Start at the Ogden Area Community Action Agency.

Customer Reviews (2)

love it
love it; great ideas for dramatic play and literacy activities; my preschooler loves doing them and it's time well spent;the best learning takes place when kids don't feel they're being "schooled" and this definitely fits the bill

This book had great ideas and printables!!!!
This book had great ideas for any dramatic play area.
I have used quite a few in my dramatic play area at school.
I also enjoyed the printables in the back of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
Excellent resource for teaching or directing Shakespeare. Great ideas for different teaching methodologies and plenty of across-the-curriculum activities. You, your colleagues, and your students will enjoy the clever means of incorporating math, science, art, journalism, music, social studies, physical education, and social issues into the study of Shakespeare. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

You Can Teach Shakespeare to Children
Shakespeare To Teach Or Not To Teach: A Teacher's Manual, can be used with elementary to high school students, and is suitable for use in classroom, drama club and homeschool settings. Teachers and parents need not be anxious over teaching Shakespeare anymore.

Shakespeare To Teach Or Not To Teach, can be used in conjunction with any Shakespeare play, but works very well with Shakespeare For Children: The Story of Romeo and Juliet or one of the six productions in the Sixty-Minute Shakespeare series.

Beginning with basic information of Shakespeare, the time period (both his plays and when they were performed), what took place on and backstage in The Globe theater, To Teach Or Not To Teach puts the teacher at ease with the material and builds confidence to present Shakespeare to his or her students.

To Teach Or Not To Teach provides excellent instructional ideas to make the plots and characters come alive for the students. From just reading through play, or acting it out to activities reaching past the typical Language Arts or English class assignments and crossing the core curriculum subjects.

Provides basic tools to introduce children to Shakespeare
Do you work with children to whom you'd love to introduce Shakespeare's work but are uncertain how to go about it? Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach may be the answer to your dreams. According to Foster and Johnson, "These methodologies work with teachers that have had absolutely no experience with Shakespeare. Nearly every teacher we have observed began with a great deal of anxiety and doubt. In most cases both those elements were eliminated after the first session..." The authors provide simple and straightforward guidance for introducing Shakespeare to children as young as second grade all the way through high school. This book is meant to supplement Cass's other quality books, Shakespeare for Children and The Sixty-Minutes Shakespeare series, though they can be applied to any classroom introduction to Shakespeare.

Foster and Johnson clearly have put great thought and care into providing educators with all the tools they need to introduce children to the Bard. Furthermore, the authors provide the information in brief snippets highlighting the most important elements in a way that won't feel overwhelming. Background on the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance, Elizabethian England and theatre, and a biography of William Shakespeare are supplied in 1-2 page, bite-sized pieces. In the core of Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach, the authors provide lesson plans for six days reading the play, including discussion questions, that include plenty of options for finding the best fit for your group. In addition, there are wonderful theatrical warm-up activities and a great variety of Shakespeare-themed activities that draw from all the strands of the curriculum, such as writing, music, art, social studies, and science. For example, there is a writing exercise in which the students pretend they are a newspaper reporter on assignment to interview a person from Shakespeare's time, such as a character from the play, a stagehand at the Old Globe in 1603, or Shakespeare himself. Or for science/health, the authors suggest that teachers can use a discussion of the death scene in "Romeo and Juliet" to segue into a lesson on CPR.

When you're feeling ready to get your production up and running, Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach provides succinct suggestions about casting, rehearsing, scenery, costumes, and even how to promote your production in the local press. Foster and Johnson understand what an endeavor it can be for a teacher to begin a new area of study and especially to commit the time and energy to mounting a production. They counsel, "You are a pioneer and unfortunately all too many of us in education are much too comfortable staying with the same lesson plans, lectures, exams and expectations. Preparing for this unit will take a fair amount of time and commitment but your willingness to explore this realm will reap far-reaching and far-lasting rewards."

When you're contemplating whether to teach or not to teach Shakespeare, feel free to go ahead and teach! This book will guide the way.

Quill says: Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach provides the basic tools for anybody (even you!) to introduce children to Shakespeare's great works.

..."the Five Star Shakespeare Collection an incredible resource"
As our Education Outreach department at Colorado Shakespeare Festival is dedicated to enlightening teachers and students (and the community at large) about Shakespeare's works--using a "hands-on" philosophy--I have found the Five Star Shakespeare Collection an incredible resource. Whenever teachers are looking for a truncated script, or help with "opening up Shakespeare" to their students, I refer them to you...(Five Star Publications - Arizona)

Melinda J. Scott, Education Director
Colorado Shakespeare Festival

A Good Beginner Text
I found this book rather simplistic. I bought it to teach Drama and I think it is probably more appropriate to English. It gave me one or two ideas but the rest of the activities were ones I use already or ones that weren't really appropriate.
I would recommend this book to a beginning teacher of Drama or English.

This book is an amazing introduction to the Bard ...
"The book is an amazing introduction to the Bard, his works andenvironment...a way to overcome literacy and dramatic stage fright that canopen many doors..."

R. Thad Taylor, President Shakespeare Society ofAmerica, Inc. ... Read more

Product Description
Lights! Scriptures! Action!
Ready-to-Go Scripture Skits engages young people in an active form of learning that is hard to beat. It achieves MLP (maximum learning potential) through FLP (full laugh potential). And the skits are so off-the-wall that involving everybody in a group is easy.

Each of ten sessions uses an intentional three-act process to help young people explore the Scriptures and apply them to their lives today: grabbing young people's attention through an outrageous and spontaneous Scripture skit, leading them to deeper insight through the historical context and meaning of the story's key elements, and helping them apply the story's meaning to their lives.

The sessions are perfect for religious education classes, youth groups, campus ministry events, retreats, lock-ins, and intergenerational and family programs. Ready-to-Go Scripture Skits are just that: ready to go, using few props and lines that can be read in a moment's notice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

great resource for catholic teachers
teach grades 5 and 6. I bought this a few months ago and my students ask almost daily, "Can we do scripture skits today?" I have students who don't usually participate in drama activities, volunteering to be the lead! We began writing our own scripture skits and they have done pretty well with it. A great resource! ... Read more

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Perfect for use in worship, small group gatherings--both for youth and adults--and as openings for Bible studies, this collection of 26 short, parable-style dramas addresses issues we all struggle with. ... Read more

Product Description
Covering the Curriculum with Stories includes six cross-curricular projects (with two more available on a supplementary CD) that will deliver outstanding individual learning experiences. They provide a fascinating and fun framework for delivering curriculum content and key skills. More importantly they give children the opportunity to identify and develop their learning styles, multiple intelligences and thinking skills.

Various dramatic tools are explained in detail and the simple clear instructions in each drama lead the teacher through the whole process with the minimum of effort. Many extension activities are suggested along the way to enhance the learning experience. This long awaited follow up to the best selling, The Teacher s Toolkit, this volume will be welcomed by teachers and student teachers alike--it is well researched, wellwritten and clearly laid out.

Each project will help the teacher make major contributions to pupils' literacy and literary skills and teach a whole repertoire of thinking skills.Each includes elements of math, science, history, citizenship, geography, art and design, religious education, design and technology, personal, social and health education. The book tells you all that you need to know to teach the projects successfully. At your fingertips, for each project, you have a clear overview with precise learning outcomes, simple, clear, step-by-step instructions, and in some cases, the very words you need to say. ... Read more

Product Description
Lights! Scripture! Action!

Ready-to-Go Scripture Skits engages and involves young people in an active form of learning that is hard to beat. It achieves MLP (maximum learning potential) through FLP (full laugh potential), and the skits are so off-the-wall that you will have no problem involving just about everybody in your group one way or another (actually, most will have no choice in the matter!).

Each of the ten sessions in this book uses an intentional three-act process to help the young people explore the Scriptures and apply them to their lives today:

Act 1: Engage grabs the young people's attention by getting them to perform an outrageous and spontaneous Scripture skit.

Act 2: Examine leads them to a deeper insight by explaining the historical context and meaning of the key elements in the Scripture skit.

Act 3: Explore brings it all home by helping them apply the meaning of the Scripture story to their lives today.

The sessions are perfect for religious education classes, youth groups, campus ministry events, retreats, lock-ins, and intergenerational and family programs. Best of all, the ready-to-go skits are just that: ready-to-go. Few props are used, no lines need to be memorized, and no characters need to be developed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

love it
I teach grades 5 and 6. I bought this a few months ago and my students ask almost daily, "Can we do scripture skits today?" I have students who don't usually participate in drama activities, volunteering to be the lead!We began writing our own scripture skits and they have done pretty well with it.A great resource! ... Read more

Product Description
Engages students with plays that reinforce natioanl standards.Includes a vocabulary guide and before-and-after reading activities.Teaches students creative problem-solving techniques. ... Read more