Drama Plan for “Polar Express” (for Years 2-4)

Warm-up / To focus attention, body and movement, rouse enjoyment / Rubber chookie: students stand in circle and flap each arm and leg –right then left arm, right then left foot 8 times, then 4, then 2 then 1 then on “rubber chookie” signal I throw the dog toy (a rubber chookie” into the middle while everyone flops onto the floor (outwards rather than inwards to avoid collisions)
Picture book pretext / To connect with the journey to the North Pole / Read “Polar Express” and wonder together what route it took to the North Pole and where it started. Discuss this with an open atlas or globe.
Train headlights / To connect with the train theme and direct purposeful movement, building awareness of movement of others /
  1. Movement across space with headlights on. Stop on train signal and change direction 90 degrees.
  2. Train and passenger (a & b): copy the engine’s movement, then swap role with partner.

Stops along the way / To focus perception onsome of the settings of their stations from Istanbul to the North Pole and build in speech / Show environmental scenes along the way. With each, brainstorm: I see, I hear, I smell. As teach child makes a statement he/she repeats it over and over as a chant till everyone has done their “I see” and is chanting in unison, then go straight on to“I hear” and finally “I smell” (choral statements). An elaboration for older groups is to then get them to state all three. (Places on the way that are interesting would be Morocco, a German forest, a Czech grasslands, a Swiss banking city or the Matterhorn, a castle in the UK, Legoland in Copenhagen, a Lapland or Finnish setting and of course the North Pole itself
Human Board Game / To consolidate knowledge of the stations on the way / Children move around a series of carpet squares laid out on the floor with station names on them. Each has a plus or minus value (getting lego at Legoland is a plus, a blizzard in Finland is a minus, as is getting locked in a dungeon in the castle in the UK, buying delicious spices in Morocco is a plus, spending up big in a rich banking state like Monaco or getting caught in a grass fire in the Czech grasslands is a minus, giving a donation to help save an endangered species in any place orgiving a Christmas present to a child in a poor city Is a plus, etc). Trains can only go forward and must stop on the square in front of them when the whistle blows. Otherwise they can’t stop. When they get to the North Pole they start back at Istanbul.
Board game challenge / To develop understanding of geography and social issues on the way to the North Pole / To create a board game in groups of 4-6, of the route from Paris to the North Pole, with cards along the way giving “move forward 3 steps”, “roll again” for kind deeds, gifts or happy events, or miss a turn for catastrophicgeographical events or selfish acts. Give children a large drawn map of Europe including the United Kingdom, cards, pens, a dice and counters and lots of atlases and factual books about Europe to refer to as they plan their route. Jumping across a few oceans on the way is allowed since it is a fantasy Christmas train. Children need lots of guidance with drawing tracks with evenly spaced squares for their train counters to travel on.
Tiny bells are the prizes, just as the child in the story received a bell as his gift from Santa Claus.

Resources: books and internet sites with information about geographical and cultural features on the route, a train whistle instrument, a rubber chookie, maps of Europe on A2 card for the board games, die, short coloured matchsticks for train counters, small squares of card for the board game pick-up cards for different stations, Christmas bells

Follow-up Geography activities: further study of the different environments along the way, atlas investigations of information available on maps (population, wealth. Industry, landforms, distances, directions, grid points)

Follow-up English literature study: View the DVD of “Polar Express” and discuss the difference in media presentation. Write an imaginative narrative of the child’s journey to the North Pole with a stop or multiple stops along the way where he encounters another child from one of the places researched. Conduct a paired conversation between two children from different stops sitting together on the train discussing what had happened at one of the places on the way.