being fun, all the others follow suit, and when they come back laughing, they very likely beg to "play it again!"

Now it is fun for all to be spiders crawling along and looking very "scarey." The matter of spinning beautiful webs may come up, and some of the children may have ideas about how to spin the gossamer threads. In one class, the spiders raced across the lawn with such speed that the teacher called attention to the fact that spiders have thin, jointed legs, and they run differently. When the children looked at a picture of a spider, they changed their racing to what they called a “jiggly” walk, and a new kind of fun entered into the playing.

Finally, with a third of the group as Mrs. Muffet, who brings Miss Muffet a bowl of curds and whey to eat out-of-doors this beautiful summer evening, a third as Miss Muffet, and the rest as spiders, they played out the perfect rhyme, using their imaginations to embroider it differently every time it was played. The most fun of all, the children thought, was when one of the spiders had the idea of hanging by his knees on the climbing apparatus, head down as if on a long filament, directly in front of the startled Miss Muffet.

Other Mother Goose rhymes are equally as good for playing as Miss Muffet: Old King Cole, The Queen of Hearts, Sing a Song of Sixpence, Hickory Dickory Dock, Old Mother Hubbard, and many more. Children enjoy the characters, and something always happens that is fun to play. The rhymes are simple, direct, and, best of all, familiar!

Other Good Stories for Creative Plays.-After Mother Goose, The Billy Goats Gruff and Goldilocks and the Three Bears are favorites for kindergarten and first grade, along with The Elf and the Dormouse and The Little Pink Rose, a charming story for spring. Children of the first and second grades play Ask Mr. Bear, Mrs. Mallaby's Birthday, Peter Rabbit, The Little Engine That Could, and the nature myth Why the Evergreen Trees Keep Their Leaves in Winter.

It should be remembered that children can understand and enjoy many stories which are difficult for them to play. The Three Pigs, for example, is told more often than played because the fair incident is not easy for small and inexperienced children to do. In order to create, children need to feel free and confident. Therefore, until they have had experience with simple material, it is best not to attempt. stories which have problems. This is true for beginners of any age, and is the reason why older groups very often enjoy beginning with Mother Goose rhymes.

With some experience, children of the third grade have a grand time playing such stories as The Peddler and His Caps, The Brementown Musicians, and A Goblinade.

The Value of Creative Rhythmic Movement

From the first day in kindergarten, a child has experiences in rhythms. Aside from the basic rhythms of marching, clapping, skipping, hopping, much of the creative movement in dramatic play and story dramatization will be rhythmic if the teacher encourages it with the use of music or percussion instruments.

The "soap-bubbles" float to the rhythm of soft music, the elf (in The Elf and the Dormouse) dances rhythmically in his new suit before the raindrops send him scurrying for shelter; the whole story of The Billy Goats Gruff has a pronounced rhythm of its own. On a teacher's feeling for rhythm depends the amount and kind of rhythm which she encourages in her children.

There is only a shadowy line between creative rhythmic movement and drama-if there is any line at all. As soon as movement is inspired by an idea or emotion, aside from the purely physical, it is close to drama if not actually drama itself. A child always experiences

an emotion in his whole body, not in any part of him. It is a question in some instances which comes first in his response to an emotional situation: the idea or the movement of his muscles. An essential part of drama is movement; but whereas creative movement, or dance, even with children, moves into the abstract, drama is concrete the give and take of social life.

Movement should be an automatic tool, leaving the child free to concentrate on an idea. Children carry out exploration in movement: as animals in a zoo; mechanical ideas such as an elevator, a typewriter, an egg-beater, a merry-go-round; sports, seasons, occupational experiences, and holidays."

Beginning with early childhood, children experience a logical progression in creative rhythmic motion. The child not only explores

Andrews, Gladys, Creative Rhythmic Movement. New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc. p. 134.

1954.

movement; he creates, expresses concepts; and solves problems. This provides a basis for a natural progression to folk, social, and other forms of dancing in middle and later childhood.

Puppets. Both creative rhythmic movement and dramatic play should be prerequisites to the using of puppets. Although movement is much more limited in puppetry than in dramatic play, muscular freedom is needed to manipulate puppets successfully, and children who are stiff in movement are very limited in what they can do.

Boys and girls have many imaginative experiences in dramatic play. They have been encouraged to think creatively and to express their ideas, so that when they put the puppets on their hands, they very naturally give them character.

A variety of simple puppets may be used in the primary grades: flat paper or cardboard puppets fastened to rods, hand puppets made of cloth or felt, cone puppets, shadow puppets, and puppets made from household utensils, wood scraps, natural materials, such as driftwood and pine cones, and many others. The making of these puppets is described in various books, several of which are suggested in the reference list on page 65.

Young children should not use puppets which require more than an hour to make. Too often the joy of using puppets is lessened by the time required to make them. A puppet is not a toy, a doll, nor an example of handicraft. It is nothing until it becomes an actor.o

Some teachers or leaders let children begin with the fun of learning to use the puppets rather than making them first. They keep a supply of puppets on hand for this purpose, and after the children have felt the enjoyment which comes from using them, they have a greater incentive to make their own.

Many of the same values come from the creative use of puppets that result from experiences in creative drama. They are especially effective for children who like to do things with their hands but are timid about expressing themselves in speech. These children are less afraid to speak for their puppets because they themselves are not visible to those who are watching.

The preparation of a play for an audience is much more usual in puppetry than in creative drama. Indeed, with children above kindergarten age, the culmination of almost all puppet plays, even though developed creatively and presented with improvised dialog, is a performance for an audience.

Batchelder, Marjorie, Comer, Virginia Lee, Puppets and Plays, A Creative Approach. New York, Harper & Bros. 1956. p. x.

551934 0-60——5

Creative Drama Not for an Audience

Creative dramatics, on the other hand, is far more significant in a child's development if he plays out an idea or story, not for an audience but solely for the joy of creating a character interacting with other characters.

In order to think creatively, one must be free "to the point of reverie" as Dewey has expressed it. If a child's thinking is preoccupied with an audience, it is practically impossible for him to do original thinking.

A play, whether with puppets or child actors, if it is to be given for a formal audience, must be rehearsed until its pattern is "set," even though it has been developed creatively. Plays in creative dramatics should not be "rehearsed"; children are to be guided in developing them. The play must go on developing; it should grow with every playing.

Since the value of creative dramatics is what happens to the child in the process of creating, it is only rarely that a creative play is presented for any audience except an informal audience of children, or as a demonstration for parents of what children do in their classes. It is not a natural thing for little children to appear before an audience (particularly an adult audience) in any kind of play. Gradually, such plays are disappearing from school programs, for teachers are realizing that the experience is unfortunate for young boys and girls. Too often, children, like parrots, say lines as adults have taught them. They become self-conscious, and often show off when the adult audience laughs. When children are older, and have a background of creative drama and rhythmic movement, they are ready to present occasional creative plays which may be both original and charming.

Creative Dramatics for Older Children

"If thou hast two pennies, spend one for bread; with the other buy hyacinths for thy soul."

This famous saying of the ancient Persian poet suggested to teachers in the State of Washington an exciting way of encouraging sense awareness in children of the middle grades. 10 Just before the children. go home in the afternoon, the teacher asks an awareness question. When they return the following morning, they take a few minutes

10 Siks, Geraldine B., Creative Dramatics: An Art for Children. New York, Harper & Bros. 1958. p. 74-79.