We at Schaefer are so grateful for our partnership with Stage Left Children’s Theater and Teaching Artist Andrea Seigel.  Andrea works with second-grade classes to teach students a variety of concepts related to the experience on and around the stage.

Why we love it for ELLS…

Its great to see our English Language Learner students relax and have fun with activities they enjoy in school.  Beyond that, when working with Ms. Andrea, we see students engage with higher level vocabulary on a deeper level.  Working with Stage Left gives ELLs a unique opportunity to show what they know and gain new insights without relying on expressive language.

The Social-Emotional Connection…

To connect our ongoing work with Social Emotional learning, students are asked to identify character feelings and demonstrate higher-level vocabulary not just in words, but rather with their bodies and faces.  Assigning strong feelings to characters and demonstrating character gestures, poses, and feelings helps students to understand complicated concepts, explore choices and consequences, and problem-solve.

Students here are working together to create a tableau to match scenes from familiar books.  Can you tell which tableau is The Baseball Game, and which ones are from Those Darn Squirrels?

3-2-1 ACTION!