Vermont Official State Website

Communication and Expression

Creative Arts and Expression

Theatre (Dramatic Play)

Goal 1: Children engage in dramatic play and theatre as a way to represent real-life experiences, communicate their ideas and feelings, learn, and use their imaginations.

By the end of each age group or grade level, most children will have met prior age group or grade level standards in this domain.

Infants Through Older Toddlers

Infants

(0-12 Months)

  1. Imitate familiar actions (e.g., stirring using a spoon)

Young Toddlers

(9-18 Months)

  1. Engage in “pretending” by themselves (e.g., feeds herself bottle, places phone to ear and vocalizes)
  2. Role play familiar, every day events and routines (e.g., feed a doll, go shopping)
  3. Use hats, pocketbooks, clothes for dress-up and simple role playing
  4. Use object for intended purpose during play

Older Toddlers

(18-36 Months)

  1. Participate in pretend play with other children
  2. Recreate familiar everyday scenes and routines using props and costumes
  3. Pretend to be a person or an animal through movement, language, and/or sounds
  4. Use random objects to represent other objects during play (e.g., block becomes a cell phone)
  5. Link together a sequence of pretend play behaviors (e.g., put on hat, grab bag to go shopping)
  6. Use pretend play to depict real-life experiences
Younger Preschoolers Through Kindergartners

Younger Preschoolers

(36-48 months)

  1. Use creativity and imagination to manipulate materials and assume roles in dramatic play situations
  2. Identify real and make believe situations through dramatic play
  3. Create own dramatic play scenarios
  4. Create various facial expressions and voice inflections when in character
  5. Demonstrate an awareness of audience (e.g., ask others to watch performance)

Older Preschoolers

(48-60 months)

  1. Initiate role-playing experiences and playing with props and costumes
  2. Use dialogue, actions, and objects to tell a story or express thoughts and feelings of themselves or of a character
  3. Use various facial expressions and voice inflections when playing a character
  4. Use creativity and imagination to manipulate materials and assume roles in dramatic play situations
  5. Experience perspective of others through sociodramatic play

Kindergartners

Skill Development

  1. Engage in fantasy play
  2. Initiate dramatic play with props, costumes, and stage pieces
  3. Participate in show and tell or dramatic play by speaking to be heard before an audience or with peers in dramatic play scenario
  4. Demonstrate using theatre concepts and vocabulary: imagining; pretending; playing with sets, props and costumes; observing and copying; and playing with others.

Reflection and Critique

  1. Use specific vocabulary (e.g., real/pretend)
  2. Critique and revise by making affirming statements (e.g., I like...)

Making Connections

  1. Communicate ideas, feelings from other disciplines through dramatic play and role-playing

Approach to Work (i.e., Theatre)

  1. Demonstrate willingness to take part in activity
  2. Use materials and space safely
  3. Demonstrate willingness to take part in activity
  4. Respond constructively as members of an audience
First Graders Through Third Graders

First Graders

Skill Development

  1. Create a character based on animate, inanimate, reality or fantasy or imagination
  2. Make imaginative props, costumes and stage pieces
  3. Demonstrate theatre concepts and vocabulary by: identifying animate, inanimate, and fantastic; rehearsing; participating in theater games; and identifying and label moods through dramatic play and theater games

Reflection and Critique

  1. Describe theatre using specific vocabulary (e.g., fantasy, acting, play, actor)
  2. Ask questions about own role-playing and theatre work
  3. Ask questions of others role playing or acting
  4. Ask questions of peers engaging in dramatic play and theatre activities to learn

Making Connections

  1. Communicate concepts from other disciplines through theatre (e.g., role play a story recently read)
  2. Identify how theatre shapes and reflects various cultures and times, and is related to family and community events

Approach to Work (i.e., Theatre)

  1. Approach artistic problem solving with and open mind and creative thinking
  2. Demonstrate willingness to take part in theatre/dramatic play
  3. Respond to teacher and peer suggested solutions to solve problems encountered in theatre
  4. Participate in child-initiated theatre and dramatic play

Second Graders

Skill Development

  1. Create a character based on animate, inanimate, reality or fantasy or imagination
  2. Make imaginative props, costumes and stage pieces
  3. Demonstrate theatre concepts and vocabulary by: identifying animate, inanimate, and fantastic; rehearsing; participating in theater games; and identifying and label moods through dramatic play and theater games

Reflection and Critique

  1. Describe theatre using specific vocabulary (e.g., fantasy, acting, play, actor)
  2. Ask questions about own role-playing and theatre work
  3. Ask questions of others role playing or acting
  4. Ask questions of peers engaging in dramatic play and theatre activities to learn

Making Connections

  1. Communicate concepts from other disciplines through theatre (e.g., role play a story recently read)
  2. Identify how theatre shapes and reflects various cultures and times, and is related to family and community events

Approach to Work (i.e., Theatre)

  1. Approach artistic problem solving with and open mind and creative thinking
  2. Demonstrate willingness to take part in theatre/dramatic play
  3. Respond to teacher and peer suggested solutions to solve problems encountered in theatre
  4. Participate in child-initiated theatre and dramatic play

Third Graders

Skill Development

  1. Create theatre by demonstrating a character based on literature
  2. Design props, costumes and stage pieces based on literature
  3. Develop a character within a script
  4. Repeat for an audience something already created
  5. Speak with clarity before an audience
  6. Present a classroom or public announcement
  7. Demonstrate theatre concepts and vocabulary by: improvising a character with a prop; reading a part in a script; accepting a cue, demonstrating blocking

Reflection and Critique

  1. Use theatre specific vocabulary (e.g., stage left/stage right))
  2. Explain qualities that may evoke emotions
  3. Relate interpretations of theatre to personal experiences, observations
  4. Critique by making affirming statements with specific evidence
  5. As questions about own and others’ work in theatre/dramatic play and suggest changes

Making Connections

  1. Identify the role of the arts in community and everyday environment
  2. Create or perform theatre based on a culture

Approach to Work (i.e., Theatre)

  1. Generate and try variety of strategies to solve challenges encountered in creating/performing

Vermont Agency of Education
Secretary Daniel M. French
219 North Main Street, Suite 402
Barre, VT 05641

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