What we do - Early Years
Our aim is simple: To help practitioners working with children in their early years to use drama and imaginative play in their settings.
Whether you’re a preschool teacher in a primary school, work in or own a private nursery, are a childminder, a children’s activity provider, a social worker or are studying for any early years or teacher qualification, we want to help you to use drama to develop social and emotional learning, and nurture happy, confident, engaged learners...
Our CPD course
Our course, ‘How to Become an Expert in Early Years Imaginative Play’ teaches anyone who works with (or wants to work with) children aged 3 – 5, how to use drama to unlock potential. Even if you have no prior drama experience, you’ll quickly feel confident using our simple techniques. You’ll learn how to:
- Play drama games
- Lead circle time activities
- Deliver movement and music activities
- Bring stories and songs to life
- Integrate imagination into daily routines
The course can be taken in a variety of ways:
- Take the course independently and access pre-recorded lessons and all downloadable resources instantly, working through the course at your own pace
- Take the course online as above, but benefit from additional, online tutorials
- Take the course in-person in your place of work or study (we can accommodate social distancing in our trainings), plus benefit from lifetime access to the pre-recorded lessons and downloadable resources
Whichever path you take, you’ll benefit from direct email support from one of our trainers and from likeminded practitioners in our online support group, ‘The Learning Academy’.
Find out more here.
Our well-being activity pack
This, the first of our well-being activity packs, aims to help young children to recognise, name and manage their emotions. How? Through our simple drama technique, ‘Secondary Characters’.
Linked to the three Prime Areas of Learning, 'The Way I Feel' includes:
- Six weekly activities designed to develop children's verbal and non-verbal communication skills
- Six corresponding extension tasks, which includes a 'play at home' task
- Six teacher demo videos. Train 'on-the-job' and develop new, transferable skills
- Lifetime support from our co-founders and via our online support group, ‘The Learning Academy’
Find out more here.
Our free training
If the idea of doing drama with young children fills you with fear – you’re not alone! That’s why we regularly offer free training to practitioners so they can see how easy it is to use our techniques. Before they know it, they realise that drama is nothing to be scared of and that it is, in fact, just another word for play.
Current free drama training:
- ‘Bringing Nursery Rhymes to Life’ - Watch our free five-minute lesson and transform the way you sing nursery rhymes (and other songs!) with your early years children forever! Watch now here.
- ‘How to Use Drama to Boost Well-being in the Early Years’ - Register your interest in one of our free webinars that will be taking place from September – December and learn how to use one of our tried and tested drama techniques to boost well-being in your early years setting. Register your interest by emailing sarah@pyjamadrama.com
Our music
The benefits of music and singing with preschoolers and beyond is well documented. We’ve been writing our own songs since 2005 and incorporating them into the drama classes we deliver. We also record our own versions of traditional songs and add a Pyjama Drama twist! More recently, we’ve been turning some of our most popular songs into music videos for you to enjoy with the little ones you work with, and you can download an album worth of songs today, for free. (Warning – they’re more than a little bit catchy!)
Download free songs here and watch our music videos here.
Our drama games
Anyone who works with early years children knows the benefits of learning through play, but learning through imaginative play is a bit different, and incredibly powerful. Why? Because it harnesses that which comes instinctively to children (pretending) and uses it to unlock learning, to help children make sense of the world, and to develop key social skills.
Download our free pack of drama games here.