DRAMA, PUPPET, NEWSROOM, and STORYTELLING
Workshop Photos
Learn more about the Drama Workshop
Learn more about the Puppet Workshop
Learn more about the "Newsroom" Workshop
Learn more about Storytelling in the Rotation Model
In some Rotation Model Sunday Schools, Drama, "Newsroom," Puppets, Storytelling, and "Storytable" are all variations of the same workshop. In other Rotation Sunday Schools, you may find a Drama workshop in one classroom space, and a Story or Puppet workshop in another space. It's your choice!
In some Workshop Rotation Model Sunday Schools, the "Newsroom" or "News Broadcast" is used as the Video/A-V Workshop lesson because it is something that is recorded and watched. These days, it's pretty typical to video record or photograph re-enactments, story scenes, songs, and "reactions" as they take place and review them as part of the learning process.
Our Writing Team has been writing a wide-variety of "Drama" workshops that include music, special effects, even "blacklight!" Many of their drama-infused lesson plans are scriptless or "less scripted."
Three keys to a good drama workshop:
1) Lots of props, costumes and backgrounds at the ready. (This is why it is a great idea to designate one space as your permanent "Drama" area or "workshop" -- so that the resources are always on hand.
2) Record it! Adding a video camera or cellphone helps focus the kids and gives your lesson plan a fun review time that's another teaching opportunity.
3) Simple, kid-friendly scripts or scriptless technique and staging. Avoid over-written scripts that merely retell the story, and don't include insights and reflection. You're not putting on a pageant or "play," you're conducting a lesson.
Script or no script?
You'll see many lessons here at Rotation.org, particularly in Drama Workshops by our Writing Team, that avoid the use of "word for word scripts" and instead, use off-camera narrators, cue cards, and other techniques to free your actors from having a script in their hands. Script-less or fewer script-required parts also helps younger children participate in dramas and skits.
TIP: If you need to use a script, use an overhead or LCD projector to put the 'scripts' or cue cards on the wall in front of the actors instead of in their hands. This free's them up.
Yes, in just about EVERY church you can see kids in costumes for special occasions. They love that. In Rotation Churches, this happens almost every week in the Drama Workshop !
The traditional model would never take the time to make a 'cool' Philippi jail for teaching Acts 16. But in the Rotation Model, because we set it up and use it with ALL our classes, such awesome ways to teach are quite do-able.
We don't have a video of the Philippi Jail Workshop, but the kids were "jailed" with four actors who carried the weight of the drama using a script they had developed.
Your Drama space might be a room decorated to look like an oasis, a newsroom, the Philippi jail, or the inside of a whale!
There's an entire thread in our JONAH LESSONS about how to make a walk-thru blow-up whale for your Jonah Drama.
Stages are great but not necessary, though kids sure love a curtain they can open and close. Above is a stage with shower curtains.
Even the "entrance" to the Drama Workshop here looks cool.
Here's a neat puppet stage made out of cloths and quilts. It can also double as a "Bible scene" or Bible village depending on your story.
Colorful fabric everywhere! Ceiling, wall-backdrop, curtain, table.
In the Rotation Model Drama Workshop, "fisherman's nets" are good to have around.
Paul and Silas breaking out!
Notice the large puppets.
Camera woman in a "Newsroom" (Drama) Workshop
These days, the camera is typically a cellphone on a tripod or at the end of a selfie stick to get up close in the Bible action.
what was I thinking???] We hung a flowerpot for the eternal flame - if I were doing it now I would add one of those nice battery powered realistic candles! A church member built the benches for us.) 
