Sleeping Beauty, another tale suited to the first grade, is admirably adapted for dramatization.—In all this work the children do the planning but the teacher directs their impulses, criticizes their plans, and shows them what they have done. She leads them to see the tale in the correct acts and scenes, to put together what belongs together. Sleeping Beauty naturally outlines itself into the ten main incidents we have noted before. If the story has been presented according to the standards given here, the children will see the story in those main incidents. In the dramatization they might work together narration of the story and the dramatic game, Dörnroschen. A wide circle of children might be the chorus while the players take their places in the center of the circle. The narrator, one of the circle, stands apart from it as he narrates. The version here used is the McLoughlin one, illustrated by Johann and Leinweber.
Sleeping Beauty
Place: Castle. King, Queen, and courtiers take their places within the circle. The circle moves to waltz step, singing stanza 1, of the dramatic game:—
The Princess was so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, etc.
At the conclusion of stanza 1, the circle stops, the narrator steps forth and tells the story to the end of the words, "one had to stay at home."
Scene i. The Feast. Twelve fairies enter, each presenting her gift and making a speech. The wicked thirteenth comes in and pronounces her curse, and the twelfth fairy softens it to sleep. The King proclaims his decree, that all spindles in the land be destroyed.
