Today we have a great idea for a totally EASY way to put on a class play with Kindergartners or first graders with minimal costumes, minimal investment, and a part for every child in your class! Below is a guest post from my new friend Lindsey Law from the blog Miss Law’s Kinders! I discovered this great blog when she tagged me with the photo of her class putting on my Wide Mouthed Frog play below on Instagram! I was delighted by the happy smiles of this “class selfie” with the children all in their cute little masks, all ready to put on their play!
But I had to know: where in the world did those masks come from? When I did the play, I spent quite a bit on animal hats and costumes, but it looked like Miss Law did it just as well on a shoestring budget. So I asked her how she did it, and she directed me to her blog post on it, which you see below. I have since discovered that she also has some really NEAT looking items on her TPT store as well– (I saw photos of them on her Instagram account!!! I want, I want, I want!!!) Lindsey agreed to share her post on how she did this play with us here. I’m going to add few comments of my own in italics, too. Enjoy!
Hi! I’m Lindsey Law, from Miss Law’s Kinders! This past Friday, we performed our class play by HeidiSongs, “The Story of the Wide Mouthed Frog.” The play was absolutely precious, and I am so incredibly proud of how well my Kinders did. I wanted to share with you some pictures from the play.
Wide Mouthed Frogs
Monkeys
Lions
& a Crocodile
To put on this play, the children just need to learn some simple songs and act out the story while the teacher narrates. It’s the narration that prompts them and helps them know what to do next, so they don’t have to remember very much on their own.
“The Story of the Wide Mouthed Frog” goes a little something like this:
The Mother Wide Mouthed Frog and her babies went in search of food to feed her babies.
(Each time the characters do something, there is a simple song about it with movements.)
They came across Elephants, Monkeys, and Lions and asked them what they feed their babies. The Mother Wide Mouthed Frog realized that she can’t feed the same things to her babies, and continues to search for the best possible food.
(Each group of characters take their turn on the stage to be featured singing their songs and doing their movements to it. You can have as many or as few of each animal as you like, so that each child gets a part no matter what.)
That is, at least, until they came across a Crocodile. Mother Wide Mouthed Frog quickly realized the mistake she had made by talking to the Crocodile when he tells her that he feeds his babies Wide Mouthed Frogs.
After the scare of getting eaten by the Crocodile, the Wide Mouthed Frogs all returned home and never left again.
This play ends with an adorable song that all of the characters sing together.
I highly recommend Heidi Songs Primary Plays such as this one for your own Kinders. Each play is able to accommodate all class sizes, and is simple enough for the younger kiddos to perform.
If you are interested in doing this play in your own class, click the picture below to visit the HeidiSongs website to purchase the CD, or you can click here to see all of the primary plays she has to offer.
Also, the costumes for this play were a piece of cake. I was able to find the masks for each character on the Silhouette Design Store, and I was able to quickly print them using my friend’s Silhouette and then laminated and cut. I added some string and asked parents to have their child wear the color of their character to school for the play, and voila! Parents didn’t have to search for expensive costumes, and I didn’t have to really worry about any of my students not having a costume on the day of the play because no matter what, I had the masks for them.
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