New York State Funding for Arts Education Partnerships - SAP

"Making Books Sing at Public School 39"

This year marked the fifth partnership between the teachers, students and administrators of Public School 39, located in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, and Making Books Sing. Teaching artist Kalle Macrides worked with three Kindergarten, three first-grade and three second-grade classes to explore curriculum-based illustrated books through theatre arts.

During pre-residency planning sessions, the Kindergarten teachers expressed an interest in exploring the role of family and friends in A Shelter in Our Car and other books, as well as the dramatic concepts of character, setting and plot. The first-grade teachers wanted to expand their curriculum on fairytales and to compare realistic and non-realistic fiction. The second grade would focus on stretching small moments.

Each activity was organized around specific learning goals. Students worked on recognizing and showing emotions. We looked closely at the book’s illustrations, discovering clues about how the characters felt. This led to tableaux, and then drawing a picture of an emotion felt by the main character. We shared times when we felt the same as the characters.

In the game “Step into the Setting,” students drew things found in a city on our Magic Canvas. They stepped into the canvas, and became what they drew. The children created their own imaginary settings to help them understand that theatre lets audiences see inside a character’s imagination. Grade one thought about settings that were realistic or non-realistic, and grade two thought about an actual setting verses an imaginary setting. We created the sounds of a city, with cars honking, birds tweeting, police sirens ringing, and wind rustling trees.

We explored the different choices that characters made in the books and compared them to similar situations in the classroom. This helped students identify with the book and find ways to show emotions. We used improvisation, making up what characters would do, say and feel. Groups took turns being actors, audience and playwrights. After the actors improvised, the audience repeated and improved upon the actors’ dialogue. 

As the adaptations developed, each class rehearsed, then pairs of classes came together to share. All the classes were able to identify the characters and themes in each other’s presentations. All the students did a marvelous job as creators, performers and audience members. In our last session, students had an opportunity to return to the original story they adapted, and to assess what they learned from the residency.