Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Play Acting

by Carol E. Bouzoukis

Overview

iPads, iPhones, Notebooks, X-Boxes, PlayStations, Televisions, Computers. They've found their way into every corner of our lives. Add to that, the pressures of the modern education with standardized tests and crowded classrooms, and it seems that our children have lost the simplicity of childhood. Are our children losing their imagination, too? Carol Bouzoukis gives us just the remedy.

Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Playacting is an easy-to-use guide to creating simple dramas with young children. This innovative "how-to" book is written especially for parents, daycare providers, librarians, educators, and youth leaders who want to not only encourage their child's imagination but enhance their self-esteem and joy of learning. Dr. Bouzoukis recounts nine familiar children's stories for reading aloud and presenting to our children. By following the tips and using the sample questions, anyone can create a story drama in their living room, garage, Sunday school class or community center. Each story includes an analysis that adds insight into the creative process and reminds parents how simple and care-free it is to let our imaginations turn us into wolves, gingerbread boys, trees, and rivers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442212879
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/17/2011
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dr. Carol E. Bouzoukis is a Child Drama Specialist with twenty-five years of experience encouraging children's creativity. Dr. Bouzoukis holds a Ph.D. from New York University in Educational Theatre and Dramatherapy. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina. She is the Executive Director and Founder of Child Drama Workshops, Ltd., an interactive theatre arts enrichment program for children ages three to nine. She also maintains a private psychotherapy practice, Play Therapy Delaware, specializing in Play Therapy and Dramatherapy for children. Her first book, Pediatric Dramatherapy: They Couldn't Run So They Learned to Fly, earned international recognition.

Table of Contents

Foreword Maria LaRosa ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Imagination Is the Key 1

Chapter 1 The Story Drama Method 9

Chapter 2 The Wolf and the Seven Kids 27

Chapter 3 The Gingerbread Man 51

Chapter 4 Little Red Riding Hood 67

Chapter 5 The Boy Who Cried Wolf 81

Chapter 6 Jack and the Beanstalk 99

Chapter 7 The Lion and the Mouse 121

Chapter 8 Hansel and Gretel 135

Chapter 9 The Three Little Pigs 149

Chapter 10 The Pot That Would Not Stop Boiling 165

Chapter 11 Imagination: Practice for Living 181

Appendix A Suggested Stories for the Story Drama Method 187

Appendix B Accessories/Props 189

Appendix C Theatre Games and Warm-ups 195

Appendix D Drama with Special-Needs Children 199

Bibliography 201

Further Reading 203

Index 205

About the Author 209

Editorial Reviews

Carol Bouzoukis, a child drama specialist with 25 years of experience, has developed a way to take children's natural affinity for play acting and use it to further their all-around development.

When children use their imagination, they can work through many things, says Bouzoukis, author of Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Play Acting (Rowman & Littlefield). "It can be therapeutic, they can work out scenarios. They act that through and find resolution, even if only in play."

Bouzoukis says that how children play has changed dramatically over the years. Now it's often with a screen (television, computers, Xboxes) — methods of entertainment that lack human interaction. Play, or play acting, can fill that void.

In her book, she explains her Story Drama Method and shows parents, as well as teachers or caregivers, how to polish their skills so they can lead the children. The book also includes nine stories that can be acted out, and guidelines for each.

Chicago Tribune

Since children in today's world have decreasing opportunities for imaginative play, this is a very timely and important book. Highly recommended!

Charles E. Schaefer

Carol Bouzoukis's new book is a highly engaging guide for all those dedicated to helping children live a fully creative life. My strongest recommendations!

Robert J. Landy

Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Play Acting comes at an important time! Our children and culture are being increasingly consumed by countless sources of electronic, digital media, disrupting face to face encounters and hindering social emotional connection. At the same time, neurobiology and brain research shows us that it is those very face to face encounters and social emotional connections that are so critical to neural development, cognitive growth and general well being. Carol Bouzoukis' book provides parents and teachers of young children with easy to use tools that restore those meaningful encounters and empower those critical connections. This book is filled with fun and enriching drama activities that every parent and teacher can and should enact with every child!

Lee R. Chasen

Carol Bouzoukis, a child drama specialist with 25 years of experience, has developed a way to take children's natural affinity for play acting and use it to further their all-around development.

When children use their imagination, they can work through many things, says Bouzoukis, author of Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Play Acting (Rowman & Littlefield). "It can be therapeutic, they can work out scenarios. They act that through and find resolution, even if only in play."

Bouzoukis says that how children play has changed dramatically over the years. Now it's often with a screen (television, computers, Xboxes) — methods of entertainment that lack human interaction. Play, or play acting, can fill that void.

In her book, she explains her Story Drama Method and shows parents, as well as teachers or caregivers, how to polish their skills so they can lead the children. The book also includes nine stories that can be acted out, and guidelines for each.

Chicago Tribune