Little Red Riding Hood Reader's Theater

Grade 1 students did a reader's theater of Little Red Riding Hood from a series called, Playtales, by Moira Butterfield. The books include ways to build costumes and props. I used some of them but the students mainly did backdrops. I also have a box of props that are odds and ends I've collected over the years and students took from the box whatever grabbed their fancy. I have done this holding the book in front of me and turning the pages for the students or as in the video I scanned the pages and had the story on the smartboard (or LCD projector) for students to read from. This way everyone reads along and I find the rest of the class is more engaged. The microphone helps project students voices that are too soft and lets others ham it up. I also have a student run the computer, a video camera, and regular camera. Usually the comment is, "My arm is sore!" by the time they finish the play. I also choose a have only one child read one narrator speech bubble. This way the entire class is included. You could also add two narrators per speech bubble if you run out of parts. The speech bubbles are color coded which helps students with reading their parts. Some of the vocabulary is hard for 1st grade.

Here's a short video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huahP4t3CDE[/youtube]

 

Reader's Theater

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wui_Q44YVVs[/youtube]Grade 3 performed a reader's theater of the book, Chester's Masterpiece, by Melanie Watt. The story involves the author leaving sticky notes to the character in the book which ties in with reading strategies being taught in the classroom. I used the document reader with Avermedia software on my computer to project the book onto the wall using the Epson Brightlink projector. Students read one page of the book using the microphone from a portable speaker. Props of the author, Chester, and Rat were used as they spoke their parts. Only one of the five classes stayed focused until the end. The words were a little too hard and the lesson was a little too long. Next year I will do this lesson in the springtime when students are better readers.

I had problems with the document reader freezing. The document reader is old and the software is new so I think it is just a compatibility issue but I'm not sure. Anyone had this problem?  I attached a video. In the beginning the girl is struggling with holding the script, prop, and microphone. I told her to put the pages on the chair but she forgot. Other students would mix up the pages or drop them. I put the pages in a three-ring binder and set it on the chair and that seemed to correct the problem. I also moved the videotographer by the speaker and the sound is better in the following person on the video. I had the students' who have problems focusing run the video and flip the pages of the book.