Description:
Help your students to learn English the painless, fun way, the same way they learn their mother tongue. Winnie-the-Pooh is a famous English story for children. Acting it is a wonderful way to learn English. Pooh, Christopher Robin’s toy bear has many adventures with his friends: Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Tigger. Help your students revise words beginning with D, E, F, G and H. Let them ask and answer questions and identify things in the classroom. Have fun producing the play and developing confidence and teamwork. There are more Winnie-the-Pooh stories available on our website.
Course Objectives:
At the end of the session the student will be able to:
Materials:
MP3 player, speaker, recorder (if you want to make an audio recording), microphone, printable flashcards, Wall chart of Alphabet.
Tips:
The teacher will need a lot of energy and variety of approach, as small children get very easily bored.
Units:
Have a dressing up warm up game – competition.
Warning: this game may be noisy!
If there are more of one gender, boys can join the girls’ team or girls the boys’ team to make the numbers equal.
Get each team to stand in a line.
In front of them – a metre of more away – have two piles of clothes and objects.
In front of the boys’ team will be girls’ clothes and objects: a bag, a skirt, a blouse, high heels and an umbrella (the five items can vary).
In front of the girls’ team will be boys’ shoes, trousers, a polo shirt, socks and a man’s bag (the five items can vary).
On “ready, steady, go!” the first of each team runs to the pile and dresses.
She/he then puts his her foot next to the beginning of the line then goes back to
Each member of the team does the same until where the pile was and undresses.
She/he then touches the next in line and then goes to the back of the line.one of the teams finishes.
The first team to finish is the winning team.
Sing with mime and gesture and get the children to join in.
Sing with mime and gesture and get the children to join in.What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
My name is . . . . . . .
My name is . . . . . . .
My name is . . . . . . .
Nice to meet you.
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
My name is . . . . . . .
My name is . . . . . . .
My name is . . . . . . .
Nice to meet you.
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
Hello!
Learn words: Dog, duck, dragon, dolphin, drum
Learn words: Egg, eleven, elbow, elephant, entrance, envelope, escalator, eagle.
Learn words: fish, fan, flame, flower, feather.
Learn words: Gate, goat, gold, gorilla, gift.
Learn words: Hand, hammock, harp, heart, honey.
Bring two volunteers to the front of the classroom.
Present the letter words. Teacher says each letter’s name with facial expression and body language. Students repeat.
Make a wall chart or draw on the board to show words beginning with D d E e F f G g and H h
Teacher makes gesture to indicate big letters. Students repeat. Repeat with small letters.
Teacher encourages them to imitate her body language and facial expression.
Divide the students into two. Let each group say the words and point to the words by pointing to the correct alphabet.
Give the students flash cards with pictures and words: tree, stairs, bees, prickles, honey, gun, and umbrella – see below.
Show the children how to mime these flashcards using movement and sound – for example miming climbing a tree and miming spooning out of a jar and eating (honey) and saying “yum yum” or miming shooting from a gun and saying “pop” or “bang” or mime feeling the rain and opening an umbrella.
You can also get each child to choose a partner and arrange her/him in positions and moving them – for example making the sound of air coming out of a balloon and slowly falling beneath a balloon.
Get a pair of students to demonstrate to the class. Let them take it in turns to do this. Get the students participating as soon as possible?
The students can look at their flashcards to guess what the others are miming.
They can ask questions for a “yes” or “no” answer.
Making the story. Who do you want to be? Who wants to be Pooh? The teacher encourages one of the children to choose to be him – but it can be a girl.
Ask “why do you want to be Pooh?”
Give him / her the flashcard of Pooh looking up.
Who wants to be Christopher Robin? This too can be a boy or a girl. Just tell the girl to ‘think’ and ‘feel’ like a boy, when she acts.
Ask “why do you want to be Christopher Robin?”
Give him or her the Christopher Robin flashcard.
Who wants to be a narrator? The narrators are important parts. They are the writer, A. A. Milne and his wife who helped him with the stories. Again they can be played by boys or girls.
As writers they might have ideas to add to or to change the script.
There are also non-speaking parts – the buzzing bees.
Who wants to be a bee?
Why do you want to be a bee? (because I make honey, because I like buzzing)
Depending on how many children, you can have two or three groups for two or three performances.
Or you can swap roles half or a third of the way through the script to give each child a turn.
Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin
Downstairs, downstairs,
Last Friday, last Friday,
Forest, forest,
Large oak tree, large oak tree,
I wonder why, I wonder why,
Branch broke, branch broke,
Thirty feet, thirty feet,
Prickly bush, prickly bush,
Balloon, balloon,
Yesterday, yesterday,
Rabbit, rabbit,
Underneath, underneath,
umbrella, umbrella,
String, string
Heffalump, heffalump
Remembering, remembering
NARRATOR 1: Here is Winnie the Pooh coming downstairs, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head.
NARRATOR 2: Behind Christopher Robin.
NARRATOR 1: As far as he knows, it is the only way of coming downstairs.
NARRATOR 2: Sometimes he feels that there is another way,
NARRATOR 1: If only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN STOPS DRAGGING HIM AND THE BUMPING STOPS
NARRATOR 2: Here he is at the bottom of the stairs,
NARRATOR 1: Winnie-the-Pooh
CHRISTOPHER: What about a story?
NARRATOR 2: What about one?
CHRISTOPHER: Please tell a Winnie-the-Pooh one?
NARRATOR 1: What sort of stories does he like?
CHRISTOPHER: About himself. Because he’s that sort of Bear.
NARRATOR 2: Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday
NARRATOR 1: Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself.
NARRATOR 2: One day when he was out walking,
NARRATOR 1: He came to an open place in the middle of the forest.
NARRATOR 2: And in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree.
NARRATOR 1: And, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing- noise.
POOH: That buzzing-noise means something.
The only reason for making a buzzing-noise is because you’r a bee.
The only reason for being a bee is making honey.
So that I can eat it.
(SINGS) Isn’t it funny
How a bear likes honey?
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does?
Help!
NARRATOR 2: The branch broke and he dropped ten feet.
POOH: It’s all because ….
POOH: Help!
NARRATOR 2: Another branch broke and he dropped twenty feet.
POOH: It’s because I like honey so much.
POOH: Help!
NARRATOR 1: And he dropped thirty feet into a prickly bush.
POOH: Ouch!
POOH: Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!
NARRATOR 2: After he’d taken the prickles out of his nose, the first person he thought of was Christopher Robin.
CHRISTOPHER: Was that me?
NARRATOR 1: Yes, that was you.
NARRATOR 2: So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin,
NARRATOR 1: who lived behind a green door in another part of the Forest.
POOH: Good morning, Christopher Robin.
CHRISTOPHER: Good morning, Winnie-the-Pooh.
POOH: I wonder if you’ve got a balloon?”
CHRISTOPHER: A balloon?
POOH: Yes
CHRISTOPHER: What do you want a balloon for?
POOH: (WHISPERS) Honey.
CHRISTOPHER: But you don’t get honey with balloons do you?.
POOH: Have you got any balloons?
CHRISTOPHER: Yesterday I went to a party at my friend, Piglet’s, and there were balloons there.
POOH: Oh have you got any?
CHRISTOPHER: Yes I brought a green one.
And rabbit left a blue one.
I brought it home too.
Which one would you like?
POOH: When you go after honey with a balloon, don’t let the bees know you’re coming.
CHRISTOPHER: Yes
POOH: If you have a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the tree, and not notice you,
CHRISTOPHER: That’s true.
POOH: And if you have a blue balloon, they might think you were only part of the sky, and not notice you.
CHRISTOPHER: That’s also true.
POOH: The question is: which is most likely?
CHRISTOPHER: Wouldn’t they notice you underneath the balloon?
POOH: I shall try to look like a small black cloud.
CHRISTOPHER: Then you had better have the blue balloon,
NARRATOR 2: You both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun with you.
NARRATOR 1: And Winnie-the-Pooh went to a very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was black all over.
NARRATOR 2: Then Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed there — level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet away from it.
CHRISTOPHER: Hooray!
POOH: What do I look like?
CHRISTOPHER: You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon.
POOH: (WORRIED) Not — not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?
CHRISTOPHER: Not much.
POOH: Perhaps up here it looks different. You never can tell with bees.
NARRATOR 1: There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed.
NARRATOR 2: He could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn’t quite reach the honey.
POOH: (IN A LOUD WHISPER) Christopher Robin!
CHRISTOPHER: Hallo!
POOH: I think the bees suspect something!”
CHRISTOPHER: Perhaps they think that you’re after their honey?”
POOH: Christopher Robin!
CHRISTOPHER: Yes?
POOH: Have you an umbrella in your house?
CHRISTOPHER: I think so.
POOH: I wish you would walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say ‘Tut-tut, it looks like rain.’ I think, if you did that, it would help deceive the bees.
NARRATOR 1: Well, you laughed to yourself,
CHRISTOPHER: Silly old Bear !
NARRATOR 2: But you didn’t say it aloud because you were so fond of him
NARRATOR 1: And you went home for your umbrella.
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN RETURNS
CHRISTOPHER: Shall I put my umbrella up?
POOH: Yes, but wait a moment.
The important bee to deceive is the Queen Bee.
Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down there?
CHRISTOPHER: No.
POOH: A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying, ‘Tut-tut, it looks like rain,’ I shall do what I can by singing a little Cloud Song, such as a cloud might sing ……. Go!
CHRISTOPHER: Tut-tut, it looks like rain.
POOH: How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
Every little cloud
Always sings aloud.
How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.
THE BEES START BUZZING ANGRILY AROUND POOH.
POOH: Christopher–ow!–Robin,
CHRISTOPHER: Yes?
POOH: I have just been thinking. These are the wrong sort of bees.
CHRISTOPHER: Are they?
POOH: I think they would make the wrong sort of honey.
CHRISTOPHER: Would they?
POOH: Yes. I think I shall come down.
CHRISTOPHER: How?
NARRATOR 2: Winnie-the-Pooh hadn’t thought about this.
NARRATOR 1: If he let go of the string, he would fall–bump–and he didn’t like the idea of that.
NARRATOR 2: So he thought for a long time.
POOH: Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun.
Have you got your gun?
CHRISTOPHER: Of course I have. But if I do that, it will spoil the balloon.
POOH: But if you don’t, I shall have to let go, and that would spoil me.
NARRATOR 1: So you aimed very carefully at the balloon,
POOH: Ow!
CHRISTOPHER: Did I miss?
POOH: You didn’t exactly miss, but you missed the balloon.
CHRISTOPHER: I’m so sorry,
NARRATOR 2: This time you hit the balloon and the air came slowly out,
NARRATOR 1: And Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.
NARRATOR 2: But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week,
NARRATOR 1: And whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off.
NARRATOR 2: We think that’s why he is called Pooh.
CHRISTOPHER: Is that the end of the story?
NARRATOR 1: That’s the end of that one.
NARRATOR 2: There are others.
CHRISTOPHER: About Me and Pooh?
NARRATOR 1: And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don’t you remember?
CHRISTOPHER: I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.
NARRATOR 2: That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump–
CHRISTOPHER: They didn’t catch it, did they?
NARRATOR 1: No.
CHRISTOPHER: Pooh couldn’t, because he hasn’t any brain. Did I catch it?
NARRATOR 2: Well, that comes into the story.
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN NODS
CHRISTOPHER: I do remember, only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again. Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.
NARRATOR 1: That’s just how I feel.
CHRISTOPHER: I didn’t hurt him when I shot him, did I?
NARRATOR 2: Not a bit.
For their homework please ask the students to draw a picture of Pooh or Christopher doing things from the story. Let them keep flashcards each to help them. Also write their names on the pictures.
You can submit your students’ pictures to the Learn English through Drama website. The best pictures will go on the website. If they wish we shall add their name, school and / or country.
We have advice on the use of music in plays and particularly the music of the great classical composers. Have a listen !
