FIREFIGHTER FRANK
Name of Activity:.Firefighter Frank
Category:.Let's Pretend Person
Props: A Firefighter hat, A firefighter coat, a walkie-talkie, a badge, a hose, and an oxygen container (ideally as many of these props for your child as possible and at least a hat and one additional prop for you)
Your Role: Coach and historian.
Directions: Before you show your child the firefighter gear, ask him or her if he or she has ever seen a fire engine, been to a firehouse, or seen a firefighter video. Encourage your child to recall that experience. Then, show your child the firefighter gear. Help your child put on the gear. While you are helping put on the gear, focus the child on how this gear makes him or her transform from self to a firefighter! Then, coach the child to portray the character of firefighter: to walk, talk, and enact and interact as a firefighter.
Goals for You: Your job is to participate in the evolving enactment: you may be assigned a secondary role (fireman's assistant), you may have to shape the story and offer suggestions, you may even have the role of victim to be rescued. During the activity, you will be walking a fine line between over-directing the enactment and being totally passive. Your task is also to help the child make connections between recalled firefighter scenes and the action that is taking place now. In other words, you may have to help your child recall firefighters seen and heard in the past, connect those memories to these costume pieces, and finally, to use both memory and costume to stimulate the development of a firefighter character.
Goals for Children: The here-and-now costume pieces help spark your child's recall of any firefighters they have seen in real life and those seen in books or in videos. The costume pieces also help your child try on the role of firefighter and learn to take the perspective of another.
Possible Strategy:
What to say: "Have your ever seen a firefighter, in real life, in books, or on television?" "Do these costumes and these props help you remember a firefighter? Want to try them on? What should I be?"
What to do: Help put the costume on your child. You might even want to put on a costume piece first to show that you can play the role of the firefighter.
Possible Shaping:
What to say: "I see that you are walking like a firefighter. What else could you do firefighter?" "Say a few words. Really imagine that you are a firefighter."
What to do: Help your child extend the enactment by using other furniture or toys in the room to suggest locales and scenes.
Possible Ending:
What to say: "I liked the character that you created. You were a very believable firefighter. You have a wonderful imagination."
What to do: Make sure you put away the gear with relish and importance--this gear is important and significant, not just any old prop.
One important note: One of our students, Joe Howard, found that when doing this activity the child often feels "all dressed up but with no place to go". You need to provide the child with some props to give her or him something to do once s/he is a firefighter. Joe made a "pretend fire" out of cardboard and gave the child a hose. He then had the child try to put out some fires. This approach worked well.
