Reading Club

Nine Mile Falls Elementary’s Reading Club presented its original play.

Even dragon moms need sleep! This was the message of the original play given by the Reading Club at Nine Mile Falls Elementary. Fourteen students, third through fifth grade, participated in two afternoon clubs with a reading enrichment focus. Each club met once a week from January through March. Taught by Mrs. Joy Murphy, the students explored point of view, voice, and dialogue though reading, writing, and performing.

Fairy Tales were used as the basis for these learning activities. First, the students read a variety of Fairy Tales. Then each student and Mrs. Murphy chose a familiar tale to rewrite from a different character’s point of view than the original. One young lady chose the Frog Princess Bride to rewrite. “The story is from the princess’ point of view, but I wrote it from the frog’s,” she explained. A complete book, typed with illustrations and a cover, was the end result. These stories were read to the Kindergarten class by the authors as well as to the club members.

Now the two clubs were to select a story to turn into a play. Without much debate, the clubs both wanted to turn Mrs. Murphy’s story into a play. Each club member read the story thoroughly, making notes on ideas to share with the group. They were to each come up with three prop ideas to make for the play. In their groups, they worked on creating dialogue that fit the characters and moved the story forward. After spring break, the two clubs met together twice a week to weave their work into a complete play and create any additional props/scenery.

On Thursday, April 17th, the two clubs presented the play to the school. “It was a lot of fun,” shared one student who portrayed Princess Lyric, the lead role. Through these clubs the students had the opportunity to further explore elements of a story. Transforming a story into a play enabled the students to share what they had learned in a creative fashion.