This practical book offers unique and powerful ways to use play to investigate stories, big ideas, and events. It focuses on dramatic play as a natural response to learning.

Dramatic Play in the Early Years argues that dramatic play is not theatre but a dynamic process that involves planning, playing, and practice. It shows teachers how to involve young students in play where they become the story and live the life of the characters or animals, bump up against issues, and better appreciate the complexities of the human journey.

This comprehensive resource covers many aspects of learning through play and explores

• The Creative Process — from setting up the “Aha” moment to describing the teacher’s role

• Getting Started — from the willing suspension of disbelief to strategic use of pauses to listening for next steps

• The Importance of Practice — from working towards focus and control and side-coaching to becoming believable characters

• Building Belief — from narrating to cast a spell to using blank paper to set a story scene

• Finding the Story — from choosing a story to strategies for prompting improvisation

• Playing Inside the Curriculum — from establishing a framework to finding the story in subject areas

Rooted in classroom experience, this valuable resource offers a variety of effective ways in which children can be encouraged to incorporate voice, characterization, movement, stillness, concentration, and listening for more expressive play.