An Inclusive Early Childhood
Development Program
Feeling Hot, Cold and Wet: Here Comes the Sun
Performing in the spotlight
Learning Objectives Including All Children Arts Experience
Artist With a Disability Learning Log Learning at Home
Learning through the Arts - In Start with the Arts, drama activities do not include formal theater that involves scripts and performances for audiences. Drama techniques are less involved and more spontaneous. They include pantomime, role-play, dialogue, improvisation, puppetry and storytelling. - More about Learing through the Arts
Learning Objectives
- Express ideas and feelings about the sun and sunny days.
- Identify the sun as a star in our galaxy.
- Build vocabulary related to the sun.
- Demonstrate a reaction to the spotlight through facial expression, gesture and body movement.
- Use a spotlight to focus action in a dramatization.
Teach children the American Sign Language sign for “sun,” and use it throughout the lesson.
For children with emotional disabilities or who are shy, keep in mind that they may feel uncomfortable in the spotlight. Try the following adaptations:
- Pair children and have them perform their favorite activities for each other.
- Ask children about their favorite activities, develop a group list, and then have the entire class pantomime the activities.
For children with visual disabilities, describe each pantomime. Play soft music during the time that the spotlight is on. Turn off the music when the sun “sets.”
Key Vocabulary: sun, sunny, star, galaxy, pantomime, spotlight, focus, action
TIP: Consider adding pictures to the chart to illustrate children’s ideas.
Connecting to Past Experience
- Introduce the sun as a star in our galaxy. It is not the largest star, but it is the closest, which makes it appear to be the largest.
- Ask children to think about all the things people do when the sun is shining. What do you like to do on sunny days? Why do we need the sun?
Expressing Through Drama
Invite children to pretend that the spotlight or the flashlight is the sun. Imagine that it rained all week and you couldn’t go outside and play. Finally the sun comes out. What will you do? How will you feel? Remind children that pantomime is telling a story without words.
- As the spotlight shines on them, children stand and pantomime what they like to do on a sunny day.
- Classmates name the activity based on their observation of the pantomime.
TIP: If children cannot figure out the activity, help them. If they still cannot figure it out, have the child pantomiming tell the class.
TIP: As the children move, follow them with the spotlight (sun).
TIP: You could have groups of children “gardens” stand up as the sun shines on them.
Vary the experience to include small groups of children. Shine the spotlight on three or four children at one time.
- Invite the group to pantomime what they like to do on a sunny day.
- Have the rest of the class guess the activities being pantomimed.
- Encourage the other children to imitate or build on the activity in their own way.
End the activity by having the light slowly fade out by covering the flashlight with a piece of construction paper. Have children say goodbye to one another and go home, now that the sun has gone down and night is falling.
Talking About Art
What did you like best about the pantomime? Review the list of things children said they like to do when it is sunny. Would you still be able to do these things after the sun goes down? Why or why not?
Extending the Experience
- Create another pantomime about flowers responding to sunlight. Explain how the sun’s closeness to the earth affects the weather and the temperature and helps flowers to live and grow. Have children pretend that they are flowers. As the spotlight shines on them, have them open their petals and reach out to the sun.
- Have children make up different ways to bow. When the spotlight shines on them, have them take a bow. Encourage the audience to clap for them.
- Create a Class Book or tape recording entitled “Fun in the Sun.” Each child completes the sentence, “I like to __________in the sun” and illustrates it, or tells a related story.
- Create a game of “__un” words. Draw and cut out a large sun from tagboard. Write the word sun in the center, but instead of the letter S cut two horizontal slits. On a separate vertical strip of tagboard write a vertical list of different letters (e.g., b, f, g, n, r, s, sp). Children pull the vertical strip through the slit to create different “__un” words.
Introducing An Artist With Disabilities
Lynn Manning is an award-winning poet and playwright, an actor and former world champion judo practitioner. He was a visual artist and juvenile counselor before losing his sight in 1978, when he received a gunshot wound to the head.
Mr. Manning now paints with his words. He uses a talking computer with a print recognition system to read, write, edit, and research his works. He has a CD titled "Clarity of Vision" and had appeared in many television shows. He was the U.S. Olympic Committee's 1990 Blind Male Athlete of the Year, winner of the first World Cup for Blind Judo in Italy in 1991 and silver medalist in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona.
Invite children to draw a picture of themselves doing something on a sunner day. Assist children in writing a descriptive phrase or sentence.
Suggested Title: Playing in the Sunshine.
Dear Family,
During our drama activity, children experienced how it felt to perform in the spotlight. They pretended that the light was the sun. When the sun came out they were happy because it meant they could go outside and play. Children pantomimed what they would do if it were a sunny day.
Please talk to your child about the experience and select some of the following ideas for continuing the learning at home.
Talking With Your Child
What did you do when the spotlight was on you? What is your favorite activity on sunny days?
Ideas for Continued Learning
Select and read books from the library. Consider:
- Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale by Gerald McDermott
- Dawn by Uri Shulevitz
- Gathering the Sun by Alma Flor Ada, Illus. by Simón Silva
- Sing to the Sun by Ashley Bryan
- Sun Song by Jean Marzollo, Illus. by Laura Regan
- Sun Up, Sun Down by Gail Gibbons
- The Sun Our Daytime Star by Jane Belk Moncure, Illus. by Helen Endres
- The Sun Our Nearest Star by Franklyn M. Branley, Illus. by Don Madden
- Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky by
- Elphinstone Dayrell, Illus. by Blair Lent
With your child…
Play a game of “Freeze and Defrost” using a flashlight. Have your child remain very still and “frozen” when the light is not on him or her. Shine the light on your child and watch the “defrosting” as he or she moves around. Once the light is off, then it is time to “freeze” again. Reverse roles; let your child shine the light on you as you freeze and defrost.
Watch a sunset. Talk about all the different colors. Encourage your child to paint or draw a picture of a sunset. Different colors of crayons can be blended together and used on top of each other.
Arts Vocabulary
Mime – An actor who pantomimes stories for an audience
Pantomime – A way to tell a story without words or sounds, with only facial expressions, gestures and body movements.
| Materials |
Spotlight or heavy-duty flashlight Construction paper to cover the light when the sun goes down Easel pad, markers |
