.--The play
develops the voice, and it gives freedom and grace to bodily
movements. It fixes in the child mind the details of the story and
impresses effectively many a good piece of literature; it combines
intellectual, emotional, artistic, and physical action. The simplest
kindergarten plays, such as _The Farmer, The Blacksmith_, and _Little
Travelers_, naturally lead into playing a story such as _The Sheep and
the Pig_ or _The Gingerbread Man_. _The Mouse that Lost Her Tail_ and
_The Old Woman and Her Pig_ are delightful simple plays given in
_Chain Stories and Playlets_ by Mara Chadwick and E. Gray Freeman,
suited to the kindergarten to play or the first grade to read and
play. Working out a complete dramatization of a folk-tale such as
_Sleeping Beauty_, in the first grade, and having the children come
into the kindergarten and there play it for them, will be a great
incentive toward catching the spirit of imaginatively entering into a
situation which you are not. This is the essential for dramatization.
_Johnny Cake_ is a good tale to be played in the kindergarten because
it uses a great number of children. As the kindergarten room generally
is large, it enables the children who represent the man, the woman,
the little boy, etc., to station themselves at some distance.

There are some dangers in dramatization which are to be avoided:--

(1) _Dramatization often is in very poor form_. The result is not the
important thing, but the process. And sometimes teachers have
understood this to mean, "Hands off!" and left the children to their
crude impulses, unaided and unimproved. When the child shows _what_ he
is trying to do the teacher may show him _how_ he can do what he wants
to do. By suggestion and criticism she may get him to improve his
first effort, provided she permits him to be absolutely free when he
acts.--The place of this absolute freedom in the child's growth has
been emblazoned to the kindergarten by the Montessori System.--Also by
participating in the play as one of the characters, the teacher may
help to a better form. Literature will be less distorted by
dramatization when teachers are better trained to see the
possibilities of the material, when through training they appreciate
the tale as one of the higher forms of literature, and respect it
accordingly. Also it will be less distorted by dramatization when the
tales selected for use are those containing the little child's
interests, when he will h