On 14th November, we celebrated Children’s day with the children from Bethesda Life Center by doing what they love doing the best- a Drama. The story chosen for the session was The Great Goat Chase by Tony Bonning, a story filled with histrionics and great pictures to support them.
We started the session by singing our Bookworm Circle songs. This was followed by a game of passing the hat accompanied by guitar music played by one of the students from the Center. Whoever had the hat when the music stopped was given a funny forfeit. Lucky, one of the junior children surprised us all with his break-dancing skills.
The ‘Making a shape’ game gave the children the opportunity to work together as a team in formation to make the given shape. The children came up with unique ideas and had a lot of fun in doing so.
The children immediately took to animal charades , and doing this in pairs gave them the freedom to experiment with acting out. This enthusiasm was carried forward when we sang the Animal Farm song and the children practiced their animal sounds here.
During the Read Aloud, we used animal puppets and brought them out of our bag with great drama as soon as that particular animal made an entrance in the story. The children were enraptured and gave us their full attention right till the end.
The piece de resistance of the session was of course the drama put forth by the children themselves as they took on the characters from the story. Mr. Farmer, Dog, Horse, Cow, Pig, Bee, and the three goats were brought alive by the children of Bethesda Life Center; a Great Goat Chase indeed. Tony Bonning would have been proud!
We all then sat together in a circle and shared some banana chips with a soft drink. The children read out the Children’s Day cards each had received, smiles on their lips, a song in their heart, making a memory to be cherished.