Bringing Books to Life - Dramatize It!

This is my 4th post this week for the 5 Days of Series that the TOS Crew is hosting.  So far in the 5 Days of Bringing Books to Life we have talked about cooking with books, building things that we've read about and fun ways to do "book reports."  Today I want to talk about dramatizing books we've read and things we are studying.  

Let's just say that you and your kids just finished reading Detectives in Togas or about Romans in general, it would be lots of fun to do as the Romans did.  Dress in togas, act like a Roman, eat like a Roman, with your hands while laying down!  I bet your kids will never forget the day they all dressed in Togas (sheets) and had a Roman Feast!

After finishing a family read a loud, allow your children to put on a play of the book that they have just read.  This would be a great for the family to do on a Friday night.  Don't forget to invite grandparents, family and friends.  My kids love to do little plays for their daddy and I, we are usually greeted by an usher who takes our tickets and shows us to our seats.

As I have mentioned in the last couple of posts, we have just about finished studying nights.  Can you guys guess what my boys have been dressing up as ALL WEEK LONG?  Knights!  Back in October when the dollar store had their costumes for sale I scooped up about $10 worth of "armor" for my boys.  I knew we were going to be studying knights and they would be needing some gear!  Alpha Boy has been bugging me patiently waiting for us to study knights all year.  Not only has he been dressing like a knight all week, I think everyone in our neighborhood has been dubbed Sir Such-n-such!  This child WILL remember studying knights, because he was one.

Another thing my kids like to do is a little Thanksgiving play.  My kids love the story of the Pilgrims.  Every year we take the week before Thanksgiving to study them.  My children rehearse all week long to do the play for us.  They make costumes, some of which are stapled together instead of sewn - but we won't talk about that : )  Lord willing, one day they will be sewing them!  Anyway, the point is, the kids really get into this.  When I allow them to just do, they go and do!  They even take popcorn kernels and paper fish and do the whole scene of the Indians teaching the Pilgrims how to plant.  They really enjoy acting out the new things that they learn each year.

Here are some ideas to dramatize books at home:

• Play the part, have a feast or meal to represent the book you've read.
• Let them make a video of either people, action figures or Legos to act out the book or a scene from it.
• Make a costume!  Pull out your staple gun, glue gun or sewing machine and go to town!  All those craft supplies that you are to busy to use now that you have a house fun of kids- hand'em over to the kids and they will make great use out of them - trust me on this.  FYI: Tin Foil and Cardboard could help to make a sweet looking knight's costume.
• Give them a video camera and let one of them be a news reporter interviewing their siblings to get the facts of "what just happened."
• A play, simple or elaborate either will do!
• Rent the movie (this counts, right?) and compare it to the book.  Movies definitely give kids a  visual.  We just read about Robin Hood and then borrowed the cartoon version from the library.  Just today we watched one of the Nest Family Videos about Marco Polo and tomorrow we will read about him in Story of the World. 

I believe that when children are given the opportunity to recreate and dramatize what they have learned or read, then it reinforces what they have learned.   I just feel like dramatizing helps what they have just learned to stick to their little brains so much better! 

5 days, 65 bloggers, 325 blog posts! Check out what others on the TOS Crew are writing about for the 5 Days of Series here.

Do your kids dramatize what they are studying? 

Any fun new ideas?