Try saying “toy boat” five times in a row. Now do it in the voice of a giant. Then try it as a tiny mouse.
That’s one side of the bright yellow and pink bookmark I’ve been making for DramEd. On the back is a drama game called What’s in the Parcel? You hold an imaginary parcel, open it and act out what’s inside while everyone else guesses. Then you pass it on and the next child imagines a different surprise. I wanted the bookmark to give nursery teams two things they could try straight away with the children. All you need for the second one is a pair of hands and an idea.
I’ve also been working on the Early Years Edition of our Drama Games for Your Classroom cards. There are 28 games in this edition, designed with younger children in mind. I kept coming back to a simple question as I worked on them. If you’re in a busy nursery room and you’ve got a few minutes to spare, can you pick up a card, read it and get going? I’d love for these cards to be the sort of thing that lives within reach because you actually use them.
The biggest change this autumn, though, has been growing the team. Dom has been leading nursery sessions, Eloise has joined us for after-school drama, and Becci is helping me keep in touch with settings and organise what happens next. There’s a real shift for me in that. I’m used to being the person who walks into the room and gets the session going. Now a bigger part of my job is making sure someone else can walk into that room feeling ready, with a plan they can make their own.
Later this month I’ll be heading into rehearsals for The Hare and the Tortoise, which happens to be the story we explored in our nursery sessions earlier this autumn. I get to go off and be an actor for a bit, knowing there’s a team here doing work I care about. As someone who’s spent years building DramEd alongside acting, that feels like a milestone worth writing down.
