When Sophie Gets Angry

Transition: Great work everyone, I’m so glad to get to meet you and learn a little bit more about you. Now that we’ve got our bodies ready, I think we’re ready to explore our story for the day. Our story today talks about emotions, or feelings. What is a feeling? Can we think of some feelings, maybe some feelings that we’ve felt before? Great. Transition: Alright, next we’re going to do an acting exercise that helps us warm up our bodies and our emotions at the same time!

ACTIVITY: Emotion Freeze (adaptation of Cover the Space) Ok,everyone, can I see that great standing circle that we started with earlier today, standing two feet flat on the floor arms down at your sides in actor neutral so that I know you are ready to begin? Great, thank you. As you can see, we have a large rectangle space taped out here on the floor. This is going to be our boundary for the game. I am going to challenge you all to stay within the tape boundary for this game. When I say go and not before, I would like you all to just walk around the space normally, just regular old walking around. When I call out a feeling, like ‘happy,’ ‘sad,’ ‘angry’ etc, I would like you to freeze with that feeling on your face and body. Now when I say ‘freeze’ what do you think that means? That’s right, totally still, frozen, and totally silent, no sound. So you will be a frozen statuei of the emotion that I call out. Let’s practice: Actor Neutral – annnnndd Happy! Sad! Great work! Now I think we’re ready to play – you walk around the space normally, just walking along, and then when I call out an emotion, I want you to turn and face me with that emotion frozen on your face and body. Questions? Great, let’s go.

Angry

Lonely

Scared

Hungry

Bored

Sleepy

Cold

Hot

Silly

Shy

Excited

Transition: Awesome job! Those were some really cool emotions, you guys are great actors! Now today, I’ve brought a story with me that I would like to read to you that is all about a little girl named Sophie and what she does when she feels certain emotions. So let’s all come and sit in our squares in the reading rug so that we can start reading the story.

Sharing the Story: When Sophie Gets Angry – Really, Really, Angry by Molly Bang Great listening. Now, before we get up to act this out, let’s review a little bit about the story. Who was the main character? [Sophie] What are some of the emotions she felt [angry, sad, scared, calm, happy] What happened to make her really really angry? [sister took her toy] What did she do to make herself feel better? [climbed up in her tree].

Transition: Nice memory everyone. All right, in just a moment, we’re going to act out the story together. And to do this, I’m going to need you all to stand up and spread out in the space, facing me in actor neutral, on the count of 3. Any questions? 1,2,3. Great, now that we’re standing, I would like everyone to imagine that they have a big bubble all around your body.. It is especially important to remember to keep our hands and feet to ourselves when we are acting out the story, because as we remember, Sophie has some very physical reactions when she gets angry, and we don’t want to hurt ourselves or each other. So I would just like to remind you all to be careful with your bodies and keep hands and feet to self. Do we think we can do this? Great. Ready? Here we go.

NARRATIVE PANTOMIME: Let’s all imagine that we are Sophie, and we are sitting in our living room at home, playing with our favorite toy. Think about how that makes you feel. Let us all see that feeling on your face and body. Then all of a sudden, from behind you, your sister sneaks up behind you and grabs your toy! What does that feeling look like? On the count of three, let’s all yell “No!”. [123 no!] “Yes!” says your mother, “It’s her turn now, Sophie.” As your sister snatches your toy away, you trip and fall (carefully) over your truck which was right in front of you. You grab your knee where it banged the floor. It hurts! Show me what it looks like when your knee hurts. You stand up. Oh boy, is Sophie ever angry now. Show me your angriest face. You make an angry noise! You stomp your angry feat and shake your angry hands! Sophie roars a red, red roar. On the count of three we will roar 123 ROAR! And when Sophie gets angry, really really angry… she runs! Everybody run in place, as fast as you can… She runs and runs until she can’t run anymore. Then, for a little while, she cries. Can you make your saddest face and saddest body? And on the count of three we will make our saddest noise. 123 sad. And you walk slowly through the forest, feeling the leaves crunch under her feet and hearing the birds in the trees overhead. As you are walking, you come up to an old tree. Let’s climb it together! And we’re climbing the tree. Find a good place to sit and look out at the water. Maybe it’s the lake or an ocean. Feel the breeze blow your hair. You watch the water and the waves. It smells nice. Let’s all take a deep breath in…. and blow it out with a sigh. And one more time, breathe in… and out with a sigh. Great job. The wide world comforts you. You start to feel better now. Let’s have one more breath in… and out… Let’s climb down the tree. And we’ll walk back toward home through the forest… the mud smushing under our feet, twigs snapping as we walk over them. You walk up to your front door and reach your hand out for the doorknob. You smell something delicious. Is that cookies? It is cookies! You walk into the kitchen and see your family sitting at the kitchen table. They give you a hug. And you realize that you are not so angry anymore. THEEEEE ENNNNND! Wow! That was great! Let’s give ourselves a big round of applause. And take our bow!