The Wizard of Oz

Once again, I am venturing beyond the sand and water table for the inspiration for a new blog post.  In the process of tagging my pictures, I found a group of pictures and videos of children engaged in dramatic play in the house area.  Their play was a re-enactment of the story of The Wizard of Oz.

Children engaged in dramatic play all the time and in every part of the room.  Often times, it was an event that kept changing and moving throughout the room.  As it changed and moved, the children appropriated props to feed their dramatic play.  What caught my interest in their re-enactment of their Wizard of Oz play was one of the props they used to re-create an iconic scene from the original movie. 

First, let me show you the prop the children commandeered to help elevate their play to a new level.  The prop was a big box that I had set up in the space between the book corner and the house corner.  You can read about how it ended up in that part of the classroom from a previous post of mine entitled  The life of a big box in my classroom

I would say this big box was kind of an odd duck standing in what might be considered a liminal or boundary space.  However, the box in that space offered the children a rich array of possibilities for their play.  In the picture above, the child was playing a little game peek-a-boo.  Or maybe he was observing what was happening in the classroom from his secret blind.

Since it was so close to the book corner, for another child it turned out a place to read in solitude.

And since the big box was so close to the house area, some children used the dress up clothes to become superheroes.  And the superheroes needed a hideout, so they tipped the big box on its side to make their superhero cave.

Before the children could recreate the iconic scene I alluded to near the beginning of this post, they first had to decide who was going to be Dorothy.  The child with the green sleeve took on the role of director.

She indicated that the child in the stripes was the logical choice for Dorothy because she had a basket.  Since they all knew that Dorothy had a basket in the movie, they all agreed immediately.  

After that role was decided, the children re-created the iconic scene when the house fell on the Wicked Witch of the West.   In the video below, one child laid on the floor and pulled a corner of the box over his feet. When he was done, he pretended he was dead by laying face down on the floor with one foot and ankle under the box.  The box was thus transformed into Dorothy's house that landed on the wicked witch.  The child who was directing encouraged Dorothy to crawl into her house.  To complete the scene, she encouraged the other players to join Dorothy in the house.


The Wizard of Oz from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

The excitement of re-creating this scene was palpable.  Their dramatic play was a moving target both physically and metaphorically.  At the very moment when the child pulled the big box over his feet, their play came together in such a way as to transcend space and time.  Though the details of how this scene came together deviated a bit from the original, the children captured to their great satisfaction and excitement the gestalt of that iconic scene from the movie.

With great pleasure, I can safely say that they were off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.