This practical book offers unique and powerful ways to use play to investigate stories, big ideas, and events. It focuses on dramatic play as a natural response to learning. It argues that dramatic play is not theatre, but a dynamic process that involves planning, playing, and practice so that children become the story, live the life of characters or animals, bump up against issues, and can better appreciate the complexities of the human journey. Rooted in classroom experience, this valuable resource offers a variety of effective ways that children can be encouraged to incorporate voice, characterization, movement, stillness, concentration, and listening into play.

Elizabeth Coffman is an active participant in the arts education community in Manitoba. For many years Liz has been a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba specializing in the early years and the arts. She has written both art and drama curricula for the province and is well known for her work in schools with teachers and children as a consultant in dramatic play. Liz currently resides in Winnipeg.

Elizabeth Coffman's profile page