Helping Your Child Develop Thinking Skills
At Perform we talk a lot about the benefits of drama in terms of child development; we tend to break it down to the four Cs: Confidence; Communication; Concentration and Coordination.
Whilst of course drama does indeed benefit children in these core areas, of late I’ve been thinking that the list is by no means exhaustive.
I’m a big believer in the importance of teaching children ‘thinking skills’. What do I mean? Well many researchers have tried to identify the key skills involved in ‘thinking’ – probably the most famous of which is Bloom’s Taxonomy – he explains it far better than I ever could, so forgive me for simply quoting direct:
Keeping Children Focused (or Taming the Rabble!)
Being the Principal of Perform I’ve learnt a good deal about crowd control over the years – keeping a gaggle of 4 to 8 year olds focused and entertained is no mean feat.
I met with some of my teachers this week and was keen to get them to share some of their experiences of what’s worked for them (in terms of keeping the children engaged) when they’ve been running Perform parties and classes.
Of course every teacher has their own teaching style, but there were a few tips which all of the teachers agreed with, and I thought I’d share them with you. Hopefully you’ll find them useful if you’re planning a children’s party of your own, or indeed just day-to-day, if you’re struggling to get your little one(s) to focus and pay attention!
Building Your Child’s Confidence
We all want our children to be confident, but some children struggle. At Perform I speak to many parents who are concerned about how little confidence their children have.
Some are sceptical that a children’s drama class can actually help. After all, asking a child who lacks confidence to ‘perform’ might seem to be a bizarre concept.
However, we do things a little differently. We create a safe environment where children feel at ease. The vast majority of the activities which we engage the children in are games – it’s about having fun, not about being a perfect performer.
I’d like to share the story of one of our children – we’ll call him Rohit.
When he joined us he was painfully shy and barely said a word to anyone. His parents were understandably concerned and really wanted him to gain confidence and come out of his shell.
