Summer Camp Fun

A post by Jenna Wilcox, PAA Artistic Director.

At PAA learning about theatre and performance starts at age 3. Preschoolers are open to new ideas and ready for imaginative play, making acting, dance and music the perfect playground. We use games to start talking about Theatre principles such as parts of a story and parts of the stage. These games also teach teamwork and encourage self confidence in our smallest students. Given these beginner tools, our budding performers can move on to storybooks and songs to apply their new skills. We pick some of our favorite authors and read aloud the stories. Every student gets to play at any character they wish and together we experience the life of the story in the room.

Each book is paired with a fun song and our wonderful teaching artists add movement to the music. We sing along and dance to create an early musical theatre dance experience. When combined with our craft item created in our “Tech Time” the students become characters from the stories and songs and by the end of the week are ready to share with friends and family a bit of what they have learned.