Transcript

Teacher: Drama centers are frequently found in a kindergarten classroom. Usually, theyre set up to explore a single theme across a year, for example a house center. The reason we set up a pizza parlor drama center is to really vary the theme, to increase engagement for children, and to really set up scenarios for kids that they can experience as though they were experiencing them in the real world. We chose a restaurant scenario like a pizza parlor scenario to go through from start to finish and have children take up specific roles, that they could actually have the experience of actually being an employee in a restaurant scenario, and coming in as a customer in a restaurant scenario. And you may have students in disadvantaged neighborhoods, who, maybe theyve never visited a sit-down pizza restaurant themselves.  

Using drama centers that are varied in theme is a great way to really bring rich oral language interactions into the classroom. One way to kick of a theme-based drama center is to use a read-aloud. We used The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza because our theme is pizza restaurant. I asked the students specifically to pay attention to how that little red hen was making the pizza, so that they could see that there was a process from start to finish, that really comes into the chefs role within the actual pizza drama center. Its also important to think about how you could bring that theme across other learning activities that youre doing in the classroom. And so you can make your math unit into something that is pizza themed, you can turn your water table or sand table into a pizza-themed kind of activity as well. Bringing it across your learning environments really adds to the meaning and adds to childrens ability to pick up vocabulary, and pick up the language structures that they need to be successful within the drama center context, but also they as they bring the knowledge that theyve learned for understanding language and using language into the real world context. 

Varying the theme in the drama center allows you to set up very specific props that go with the different roles that people would play. And specifically, you want to be thinking about including literacy-rich props, and thats why we have a sign for the pizza parlor. We also have a pizza box that says pizza on it you can decorate different pizza boxes, just have them donated from your community. We also have menus that we have the server hand out, so that they can be read by the customers. And then the menu matches the pizza parlor order form that is then filled out by the server, who is reading it and asking questions that correspond to what it is that he or she is reading. Then, this same order form is passed on to the chef, who reads what the order is by looking at the check marks that have been filled out, and completes the creation of the pizza based on what it is he has read. Its important to have those literacy-rich props, so that kids have an opportunity to experience reading and writing in genuine, life-like contexts. 

Another thing that you want to be thinking about including is math concepts so thats why we have big pizza and a little pizza. You could also bring in some of the math concepts using the cash register, and the money and credit card that you hand out to your customers to use to pay for their pizza. Theres a lot of opportunities for kids to experience different foci throughout a single drama center. Studies show that kids in drama centers engaging in play have genuine reasons to talk to one another, as well as talk to a teacher. Thats why its really critical within the paradigm where were using a pizza restaurant, or any theme-based drama center, to have the teacher in that drama center setting up the roles and helping support new vocabulary that you want to be introducing within that context, and helping kids with the statements that they might use given a specific job description, given a specific role, like a customer, so that kids have the opportunity to hear what it would sound like and get that learning in place. 

Instead of just asking kids to go play, free play on their own in a drama center, what youre really doing is scaffolding the interaction to really maximize and boost up your language level of the students that are in there, and youre really supporting them to be successful with the interaction, and build a schema for a restaurant scenario or whatever it is your theme is. Building a schema is the idea that, when I as an adult go into a restaurant, I have a certain expectation for what my role is as a customer. Or, if I were to be a chef, or if I were to be a server, I would have a certain expectation of a start-to-finish set of activities and actions, and things that I might say that would unravel or unroll in that given scenario. Helping kids to see a start-to-finish scenario, and helping them go through it, really hooks on a lot of meaning with respect to your oral language, and also makes nice connections between the oral language pieces, and your written and reading pieces, so your literate language. 

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