Tag Archives: teaching

Quick & Easy Plays for Back-to-School

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When I was a sophomore in high school, the theater department staged Once Upon a Mattress, the silly musical based on The Princess & the Pea story and made famous, really, by Carol Burnett. I’d never before seen a live musical—as it wasn’t part of our family culture—and probably wouldn’t have at all were it not for the fact that I was playing in the orchestra. But Mattress left an indelible impression on me. No, I didn’t suddenly get the itch to take up acting (that would have been socially uncool…this from a band geek!), but here I am having spent the last thirty years writing children’s theater, much of it for Scholastic, and I have to think Mattress must have had some bearing on it.

I haven’t seen Mattress since high school, so I don’t know how much influence it has had on my new adaption of Princess and the Pea. In my version we have the conniving queen and her overly-mothered son, the ubiquitously stiff butler, a saucy cook, and a princess who refuses to adhere to the snooty royal culture of her day. Instead of living “happily ever after,” she instead says, “Nothing personal Eddie, but I like to get to know a person before I commit to anything. I really don’t care if he’s a prince or not. He just needs to be a decent human.”

While most of my plays are aimed at the middle grades, I was specifically attempting to create a package of plays for 2nd and 3rd graders that included Pea and The Emperor’s New Clothes. They’re both kind of in the second grade canon. But in the process of crafting them, I started having so much fun inserting middle grade humor, I ended up with two versions: a snarky one aimed at 4th-6th graders, and a more traditional telling for the youngers. Compared to most of my plays, the version for older kids is on the easier end of the spectrum, so it’s pretty ideal as a back-to-school ice breaker, or as warm-up for more challenging dramas to come. 

 You’ll find The Princess & the Pea and The Emperor’s New Clothes on our TpT storefront, both individually and as a steeply discounted bundle. You’ll also find the 2nd and 3rd grade version—“Two Classic Folktales”—in one package.  We think you and your students will enjoy them.

Thank you Stephanie P., Claire’s Clever Classroom, Wendy W., Amanda W., Leslie W., Jo Ann M., The LessonSmith, Tiffany S., Jacey L., Lynnette C., Katherine R. ,and Camille J. for your recent positive reviews like this one from Jenny H.:  “I love having the reader’s theater option for classic short stories! The students seem to be more engaged when we can read together as a class. I also loved the touch of humor added! Such a great way to read out loud as a class.” Rating: 5/5 (extremely satisfied)

Happy directing!

What We Believe

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As you head back to school you may find yourself in long-winded meetings wrestling over your institution’s “mission statement.” I hope you don’t have to go through such torture, but you might. The mission has always seemed pretty darned obvious to me: give kids the best academic experience possible. Done. Now can we get to work in our classrooms?

A reader recently asked me what our mission statement is at ReadAloudPlays.com. I guess they felt inclined to subject me to the same kind of torture their admin was inflicting upon them. Well, our mission is pretty straight forward: Craft plays scripts that teachers will want to use because kids love them and learn from them. Done.

But, I guess I can’t shake all those teacher inservice sessions in which admins demanded we define the meaning of every jot and tittle, that we crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s, that we really descended into that rabbit hole of core beliefs, because here I am defining what exactly we believe at ReadAloudPlays.com.   

We believe that reader’s theater represents an excellent way to teach reading and engage students.

We believe that repetition leads to fluency. (See our free product citing the brain research.)

We believe scripts should be well-crafted. (I spent more than twenty years writing professionally for Scholastic.)

We believe in creativity. When I create a play, I’m trying to do something unique with it. We don’t believe AI can duplicate that.

Despite various benefits to AI (its ability to compile and summarize data, for example), we believe it will be detrimental to the arts.

We believe in live theater. We think live performances (of theater, music, etc.) will grow in demand due to the proliferation of AI-generated junk recordings and publications.

We believe standardized testing in its current form (a multi-billion dollar industry) is wasteful and unnecessary.

Though we believe in accountability, we don’t believe standardized tests accurately measure success. Nor do they hold all participants accountable (e.g. the students, their parents, and the community).

We believe “low performing” schools are reflective of struggling communities; not the other way around.

We believe voucher schemes are designed to funnel tax money to private interests and give tax breaks to wealthy people.

We believe schools are not businesses and shouldn’t be viewed as such. (See Jamie Vollmer’s book, Schools Can’t Do It Alone.) 

We believe business “efficiency” is a myth. (According to Harvard Business School, 80 to 90 percent of all businesses fail due to inefficiency, mismanagement, or a lack of demand. Those that succeed do so mostly because they land upon a “viral” product or service, not because they’re efficient.)

We believe in libraries.  Communities with functioning library systems are historically safer, healthier, and better educated than those without.

We believe computers in schools should be extremely limited, that online programs are poor replacements for real human instruction. (See The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle)

We believe teaching requires highly dedicated people (like you!).

We believe that social media and video games are highly addictive and damaging to their users and that the decline of reading is directly correlated to the growth of digital devices. (See The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.)

We believe the standard social media algorithm is damaging to society and should be restricted.

We believe in respecting copyright. We only create plays from material in the Public Domain or for which we have explicit license.

So there you have a long-winded, in-depth mission statement that’d make any administrator call for a second in-service session in November (right when report cards are due). But at least you have an idea where we stand.

Suffice it to say, when we create a play, we’re thinking first about how kids will enjoy it, secondly about what they’ll learn from it, and thirdly about how useful it will be to the teacher. We’re not getting rich doing this (just as none of us went into teaching dreaming of $$$). We’re doing this because we believe in the power of reader’s theater plays. If you’re into that, check out all the great stuff we have for back to school such as fun introductory plays like our Winnie the Pooh collection, The Sky is Falling, and Cyclops: The Monster in the Cave.

9 Ways to Prep for a Sub

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1. Don’t bother! Just ignore that cough. Cancel that meeting. Show up to class with a box of Kleenex and a bottle of DayQuil.

2. Don’t bother. Let the sub fend for him- or herself.

3. Don’t bother. Put a kid in charge instead. Your students can tell the sub where to find all the “worksheets,” the tempera paints, the science chemicals….

4. Stay up late. Use the night before to get all those sub notes written out. Why not? You’re gonna sleep all day tomorrow, right?

5. Go in early. You’ll probably already be up and retching at 4 a.m. anyway.

6. Give ’em more screen time. Plug the kids into to computerized programs that pacify them just like their devices do at home. Or leave a collection of Disney movies and Bill Nye videos on your desk.

7. Copy. Leave the same sub plans your neighboring teacher used last week and hope the sub can adjust.

8. Hope for a snow day.

9. Or, download EZSubPlans. It’s the easiest and most professional way to prepare for a sub. We all know preparing for a sub is tedious and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Just click, print, and relax! Rather than staying up late, showing up sick, or throwing your sub under the bus, give our emergency lesson plans a try. Because they provide your students with quality, standards-based lessons that don’t interfere with your regular instruction or require special materials, EZSubPlans represent good practice. And they’re just a click away. Download your EZSubPlans today so you’re prepared tomorrow!

Whether a classroom teacher, substitute, or administrator, EZSubPlans will provide you with inexpensive, kid-tested plans at the touch of a button. Each EZSubPlans package includes at least seven hours of grade-specific lessons designed to make your next absence easy and worry-free. Classroom teachers wanting to avoid the frustrating and time-consuming process of preparing for an absence and substitute teachers needing back-up material will find everything they need with EZSubPlans. Days are labeled by grade level, but each can be easily adapted to suit one grade level up or down. A fifth grade teacher, for example, could use the lesson plans for grades 4, 5, and 6–that’s six days in all. Each set includes a reading text and comprehension exercise, a spiraling math activity with extensions, a grammar lesson, an art project, a writing task, and even opening and closing activities. Teachers need only to download and print–the sub does everything else.

How much is a stress-free sub day worth? Who can say? How much does a stress-free sub day cost? Just $5 a day with EZSubPlans. Click here for more information about EZSubPlans or click here to preview or purchase at TeachersPayTeachers.

Burned Out?

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Folks have been pestering me about why I haven’t released any new plays lately. Like you, I’m a practicing classroom teacher, and when the school year came to an end I wasn’t much more than a mass of vibrating pulp in the corner of my room. Think mealworm pupa. That’s how exhausted I was.

Don’t get me wrong. I had a wonderful class, exciting year-end activities, and a supportive admin. It was one of my best years ever! Yet there I lay for a full week, drooling. Was I burned out, or merely lightly chewed and regurgitated? Upon finally waking from my stupor I stumbled upon a nifty post about teacher stress. It appears on a UK blog called TeacherToolkit. It quotes Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin from her book First Aid for Teacher Burnout: How You Can Find Peace and Success. To paraphrase Dr. Rankin, there are six big factors that lead to burnout. In evaluating my own stress, I’ve assigned points from 0 to 5 for each.

1.) The overwhelming workload. The job is never-ending. There is always something more to be done and no matter how hard you work, something important gets left behind. Every day. Every week. Every year. I’m just hopeful I didn’t leave one of my fifth graders behind at outdoor ed. Stress points: 5, though I admit a lot of my work tasks were self-imposed. Because teachers tend to be highly motivated, I suspect that’s true for many of you.

2.) The unrelenting school day. Dr. Rankin mentions “poorly vetted resources” here. I take that to mean lousy textbook programs your school district paid thousands of dollars to shove at you. The backrooms and closets of my school building are crammed with them. My best advice comes from a veteran teacher way back in 1998. “Sure I’m using the adopted curriculum. It’s right there holding up that shelf.” These days I’m fortunate because I’m allowed—even encouraged—to use alternative resources such as Storyworks magazine, all my reader’s theater scripts, and programs such as Super Sentences & Perfect Paragraphs. For this last bit, I’ve recently re-acquired the rights from Scholastic and plan on offering a variety of revamped versions of it on TpT. But I think the unrelenting stress to which Dr. Rankin refers is really about being “on” all day, about the constant stimulation, about being pulled in too many directions, about not having enough time to go to the bathroom, let alone plan your next unit. I know I was feeling that stress as the year concluded. Stress points: 3.

3.) Oh the tedium! See item #2 and make a ditto of my snarky comments about textbooks, but add in a few more about commercial curricula, and then consider trying out some of my plays and programs. Stress points: 0. Academic freedom is bliss.

4.) Student behavior (or lack thereof). They’re calling it “Disrupted Learning,” or something like that, and it seems to be getting worse. Some experts are suggesting video game addiction is behind it, and if so, one wonders if schools contributing to it with all the additional screen time given to computer-based learning. Stress points: 3. I had a particularly lovely group this year, but behavior management is always a stress.

5.) The pointy-haired man (see Dilbert, Chapter 1). A bad administrator can destroy the school climate in a hurry. I’m fortunate to have one that facilitates a healthful culture. Stress points: 0. I’m lucky.

6.) Disrespect (from parents, the media, Betsy DeVos, et al.). In most years I’d give this a 5, but I feel like the pendulum is swinging back in our favor. From my distant view, it seemed like the public was largely supportive of educators during the strikes in Oklahoma, Arizona, and elsewhere. Although politicians continue to tout test scores and privatization, because the public is starting to acknowledge our stress, I’m only going to assign this 3 points.

So what’s my total: 14 (out of 30 possible). I guess I’m only 47% burned out. Not too shabby given the nature of the job, but I think I’m going to check out Dr. Rankin’s book anyway. If your score is up there, perhaps you should too. Until then, allow me to close with three push-backs against the stress:

X. Tell it like it is. When people make sometime-snarky comments about you being on “vacation,” boldly remind them that this is summer furlough, NOT summer vacation. Like most teachers, you’ve been laid off for a couple months. You’re not getting paid. You’re on a 200 day (+/-) contract and it ended. In fact, you probably only get one paid vacation day off per year, and unlike most professionals, you DON’T get to take it whenever you want. That’s why you’ve never seen the fall colors of New England, the Pendleton Round-up, or a decent price on a plane ticket. (I really don’t think saying this will help combat stress, but in the long run it might lower your stress score for item #6.)

Y. Get involved in your union. I’m not a fan of all my union’s policies and positions, but the NEA and AFT are the only organizations fighting against privatization of public schools. Your state-level union is probably the only organization protecting your retirement or working for adequate school funding. And your local association is probably the only thing standing between you and working conditions guaranteed to burn you out.

Z. Enjoy your summer furlough. Imagine how high your stress score would be if you didn’t have the summer months to recover! Me, I’d still be drooling in the corner. Instead, I’m busy working on some new reader’s theater products…which I hope you’ll come back and check out this fall.

Happy directing!