Movement to explore
• What would they do to comfort the baby? Without any music have the children move
around with sad faces trying to comfort their babies.
• The next part of the story is when Miss Polly phones for the doctor to come, talk to the
children about how they will make that call?
• Will they put the baby down?
• Use the phone with one hand?
Now we all swap to being the Doctor
• The doctor should answer the call, is he sitting at a desk? Is his phone in his pocket?
• How will he walk? Will he be carrying anything? Will he have a hat on?
• Practice knocking on the door.
• What will the doctor do when the door is opened?
• Take off his hat? Shake hands with Miss Polly?
• Next he looks at the baby, shakes his head and tells Miss Polly to put her straight to bed.
• Explore all of these with the children – how will he look at the baby? What facial
expressions will he use? Will he point to the bed?
• Practice all of this without music.
• Look for children who are moving confidently and stop and have other children
watch them.
Now split the children into pairs, one will be Miss Polly, the other will be the doctor. Give the
doctor somewhere to stand or sit as if they were in their office. All the Miss Polly’s start to act out
the story, when Miss Polly phones for the doctor then their partner, the doctor, starts their acting
out of the story, walking to meet Miss Polly, knocking on the door, etc. I often do not use the
Miss Polly music for this – it goes too fast and rushes the children so they do not have time to
move in the way they want to. Choose any kind of instrumental music if you want music. Dance
does not have to have music.
Allow the children to work together to finish the story
• Maybe the doctor gives the baby medicine or an injection?
• Does he stay for tea?
• Does he walk off and wave bye bye?
Performance time! Dance should always be performed as it is a performance art. After the
children have had several runs through all together choose several couples and everyone else
sits down to watch. Always applaud! Ask the children who were watching if they had a favourite
bit. Try to get them to think about what the ‘performers’ did. Help them identify interesting
interpretations of the story. Then swap over so the others get a turn to perform.
Try to be specific with your praise - ‘I liked the way you knocked on the door – it looked like
you were knocking loudly’ or ‘You had such a sad expression on your face, I knew your baby
was very sick’. Remember, you don’t want all the children doing exactly the same thing at the
same time – try to encourage creativity and individuality.
Have fun!