We use objects all the time in our daily lives, but also assign great emotional value to objects that have some significance in our lives. Children especially use objects as transitional tools to express their needs, fears or wishes. Not only social scientists or psychologists are aware of this, but different art forms, including theatre, have been well aware of this and also used it.

The following structure allows children to use objects to connect with each other and play with animating the objects to help in thinking about solving problems.

Primary target age-group: early years (5 – 7 years).

Aims:

·         To use the objects to help the group members to share stories and connect with each other. 

·         Connect the world of school and home through a transitional object.

·         Create the possibility of group members taking home good experiences of working together with each other.

Description of the lesson:

The group members are invited to bring an object from home that is dear to them for some reason. They are asked to introduce their objects, but this should be done talking about their objects as if they were living people. Asking questions like: what is the object’s favourite activity? where would it really like to go? etc. can help is children talking about their objects through personifying them.

The facilitator asks: If these objects could talk what would their voice be like? How would they talk? What would they enjoy talking about? And what would they say about their owners? Step by step the participants are helped into the position of being able to speak through their objects. All this is done in a playful way, with great flexibility towards the children, as is normal with this age-group.

The children are asked to think of a difficult situation someone could get into, but a situation that the object could help in resolving. These situations do not need to be realistic; they can verge on fairy tale like stories. The children are encouraged to share and develop their ideas.

After the children share different situations and stories, the facilitator can suggest enacting one story in which he combines different elements offered by the children.[1] This enactment is a mixture of storytelling by the facilitator (“once upon a time when a big group of children were travelling on a bus…”) and stepping into the story to play what is being said. The central element of the story needs to be that of the object saving its owner. The storytelling can be stopped at this moment and the children can all suggest ideas of how their objects could save the day. Of course, the saving itself can also be enacted and so a happy end can be realised.

The story finishes with a last moment in which the group is asked what advise the object gave to its owner after the incident. These are shared and the objects can be put away to be taken home.