Battles Come Alive Through Drama
- Friday, August 10, 2012
Dramatize: Theater or Impromptu?
Motion pictures playing in a child’s brain cause a child to remember. What better way to create a motion picture than to dramatize battles? Dramatize is one of the 5 D’s of KONOS, and we dramatize to visualize . . . but mention the word dramatize and many homeschool moms freeze. They are thinking theater productions with costumes, scenery, and memorized lines. However, there are several less stressful, less expensive, and less time-consuming ways to dramatize. For Lexington and Concord, a public park with a bridge offers the ultimate in scenery, but a driveway with a chalk-drawn bridge on it serves the same function. Raining or snowing outside? Use the garage or basement for Lexington Green and the living room with a bridge made from rows of dining room chairs crossing a blanket on the floor for water to simulate the bridge at Concord.
Costumes and props can be designed and sewed or put together impromptu. Impromptu is my middle name. Fringed vests for colonists cut from paper grocery sacks and long sticks or broom handles have served as muskets on more than one occasion. I once dramatized the full battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto for a Texas homeschool convention with many, many homeschool kids playing the Mexican soldiers. We created costumes instantly for each soldier using a black plastic trash bag bunched and worn over one shoulder, crossing the child’s chest, and tied at his waist on the other side.
Bottom line: Drama is incredible cement for creating memories, remembering, retention, recall, or whatever you want to call it. The concept is simple. If a child remembers, he can apply or use this information later in life. Isn’t that the purpose of education?
Jessica Hulcy, co-author of KONOS Curriculum, the first curriculum written for homeschool, is an educator, author, and formerly popular national homeschool speaker prior to her near-fatal wreck in 2009. A graduate of the University of Texas, mom to four grown sons, and “Grandear” to grandchildren, Jessica lives with her husband Wade on acreage in Texas. Recently Jessica and Wade started the ultimate online help for homeschooling moms called Homeschool Mentor.
Publication date: August 10, 2012
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