Page 63 of my book in the working and I thought I give you a little insight on some of “my ways”.

Perspective is the key point in working with kids ages 6 to 10 because you have to, as an educator, view and understand things from the perspective of a child. There is much you will unveil to yourself while working like this. Here is a couple of simple steps and also some of the exercises to work with. All of these will be in my book “Theater with children for children”, which I hope to finish and publish by October 2017.

1. Explain to yourself.

What does this mean? To work with children you firstly need to understand that children need proper explanation of the actual thing you are teaching them. To get them to understand you, you have to put yourself in their shoes. Get their point of view and then try to simplify your knowledge to their level of understanding. 

2. How do we do that?

Well, as I said, children have a way of understanding things on a practical basis, so I have a couple of exercises that will firstly help you understand you so that your group can understand you. 

You are gonna need a children’s play, a theater play that you would want children to work on. It is, as I said, all about proper preparation. You need to have the whole thing finished before you go to class. You have to know all the lines, and have the idea of what you want your play to look like. The best way to get all of this done is by reading the play multiple times so that you get into the events and into the characters, relations between them and all the actual acting work that you as an actor do. Once you have all of that done you go to step three.

3. Day one with the group.

Step one and two are done, you have all of your ideas sorted out and you are with them. First thing, reactions! You will see many people working with kids without explaining the Reaction importance and teaching kids how to properly react.

So, once you got through the steps 1 and 2, you have this sorted and you know where you should put reactions. Then you play a reaction game with them. It is like Simon says, but a little bit different. Use the lines from the play that need reactions. 

Here is an example:

HERO: IT IS A HUGE DRAGON! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? 

SIDEKICK: RUN! FAST!

THIRD CHARACTER: WHAT IF THEY EAT US? OR BURN US?

HERO: NO, I WILL PROTECT YOU!

So, once you have done the characters with yourself, explain the children what character has what basic characteristics. 

HERO– Brave, fearless, leader of the crew.

SIDEKICK: Support for the hero, is not afraid because the HERO is next to him. Brave too.

THIRD CHARACTER: Easily scared.

Once this is done, rewrite the text with the proper reactions. 

Example:

HERO: IT IS A HUGE DRAGON! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? 

All react: OH MY GOD! DRAGONS! 

SIDEKICK: RUN! FAST!

Everybody runs towards your desired location on the stage. Hiding behind something and being afraid.

THIRD CHARACTER: WHAT IF THEY EAT US? OR BURN US?

Everybody gets a little bit more frightened and gasp with fear once they hear the line.

HERO: NO, I WILL PROTECT YOU!

Everyone is cheering and supporting THE HERO. 

Now to the practical part of this exercise.

Once you have explained everything to the children, get them to understand that they need to listen, and that they need to hear the whole sentence before reacting. How do we do that? 

This is the Simon says part of the work. You will explain that the game functions like this:

Whenever one of the characters speaks his line, they need to react as soon as possible but not before the sentence (line) is over. Then proceed telling them that whoever is to early is dropped out just like in Simon says. You will see that kids will love this game, and will fastly and accurately understand reactions. 

Do not use only vocal reactions, get them to move around, have reactions that are both active physically and vocally, this will keep the children occupied and interested in the work. 

Once they get through 5 or 6 lines of reactions, you add more reactions, and thusly over a period of three to 5 rehearsals you will get them ready for the final step in working. The Play! Always remind children that this is all going to be performed and correct them when they are acting with their back, if they are looking in the wrong direction. 

MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THIS METHOD IS THAT YOU NEED TO SHOW MOTIVATION, KIDS LOOK AT US AND ARE AS ENTHUSIASTIC AS WE ARE. SO, YOU NEED TO BE ACTIVE FOR THEM TO BE ACTIVE. YOU NEED TO BE FRIGHTENED FOR THEM TO BE AFRAID. 

This is the reaction game, it helps kids understand the respect of others on the stage, respect for the lines, and how to properly react. This kind of work is essential to giving children proper education in theater, and it will give them a lot of fun. Just try it and you will see!

Keep following my blog, there will be more on this subject. 

Children are our future, work with them, for them, and they will gain knowledge. 

Until the next post, keep smiling and give me some insight on your workflow using this exercise.