Introduction

This teaching idea combines acting with learning by having children act out the main parts of the fairy tale: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. With each scene the students will be able to get to know more about the story and are able to successfully play a game of "Guess Who?" with the main characters.

Target group and Time

This game is best for grade 5-6 students with English skills able to understand written sentences and also know the past tense. The activity is set to fill a 12 minute time slot but can easily be adapted for longer parts of a lesson.

Learning objectives

Through this activity the children will learn about a fairy tale, practice their reading comprehension and acting skills, and learn new vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. The guessing game (part two) tests their ability to connect the collected information from the acting scenes with specific character questions, also focusing on their comprehension of what they saw, read and heard.

Instructions to set up the activity

First, the students are introduced to the theme of fairy tales and are asked, whether they know the story of Snow White. (“Raise your hand if…”) Afterwards, they are told about the two parts of the activity: Part one being the acting and part two being the guessing game. Then the teaching starts by asking for the first volunteer to act out the first small scene.

Letting it run

Part one: Acting out the most important parts of the fairy tale:

- One student gets a piece of paper containing the character they are portraying and a one sentence description of what they do in this scene.

- When the student has understood the text, you let them take the “stage” and they interpret the text into a small acting scene or movement.

- Once the scene is finished, ask the students who watched what they think happened in the scene and which character(s) were visible. Let them explain what they see happening.

- Now the next student volunteer takes the next piece of paper and acts their small scene, which is also discussed after presentation to make sure every student understands every scene.

- This process continues on until every scene has been acted out.

- Note: Sometimes two scenes happen simultaneously, so it is necessary to know when to keep a student on stage or when to have two characters acting together.

Part two: Playing “Guess Who?”:

- Five students are each secretly assigned one of the main characters (by giving them a piece of paper with the characters name on it).

- Only the students with a character know which character they are.

- After this yes/no-questions (see below) are distributed to the students until all questions are taken. (Characters also get questions so students can have more than one piece of paper.)

- Once all the pieces of paper are gone, ask for a volunteer with a character name.

-  This “character-student”, for example Snow White, steps into the middle of the circle.

- The other students now have to guess which character the student represents, by asking the question written on their paper. The student in the middle has to answer truthfully with “Yes, I have.” or “No, I have not.”

- Once the students have figured out the character in the center, for example, that it is Snow White, the next “character-student” looks at their paper and a new round of questions can begin.

Note:

- Multilingual aspects can be introduced at multiple stages of this game. For example:

- talking about the apple in one of the acting scenes: “Does anyone know what apple means in a different language?”

- “Do you know what Snow White means in a language other than English?”

- etc.