It’s because I miss my drama classes today I’d like to revisit some of the activities that worked wonders in a class. Of course these activities are popular ones and not all mine but I’d love to share them. Here are 8 activities for the drama class.
Often drama is overlooked in a curriculum but it has more intrinsic effects than any other subject in honing a student’s confidence, alertness, energy level, self esteem, vocabulary, communication skills, empathy and an enthusiasm which play a crucial part in growing up and being part of a school.
Hope you can as a teacher or parent try these with the children.
Role Play
The most important part of a drama class is giving them a bit of role play. By acting out a scenario for example: Imagine you are ordering pizza for the first time. How will the conversation go? By applying various scenarios children are able to through their performance, deal with problems and come up with solutions. Make it more interesting by letting children suggest role play scenarios. It would make the class more interactive and lively.
Moving through an Environment
Drama can be liberating because it helps you to be less inhibitive and express better. One such activity would let the children have a whale of a time because it allows freedom. Let the classroom be a place like a forest or a park or a mall. Now let the children walk through the classroom assuming and imagining what they would encounter there and taking on roles and characters as they please to fit the scene. The idea is to float through it and absorb the environment they are in.
Poetry Come Alive
If you want to teach some poetry in your drama class and make it fun and engaging let the children act out the poem. By putting the poem into an act the children find more meaning in the poetry and are practicing their acting skills with it.
Bring a skit to class
I used to have this resource which had funny and short skits for the classroom. Bring a skit to class and perform it with the children. I would usually work with large numbers so would do the skit in groups or as a whole where the classroom is divided into different characters and they act and perform the lines after me.
Moral stories
Moral stories are a great way to help children perform and also read a story before bringing it alive. This helps in learning values, boosts their reading skills and also help in learning a bit about stage directions and a little acting.
Group Work
Drama helps in building teamwork among students. A great way to get the children speaking, communicating and discussing with a focus is to ask them to build their own skit performance. Here they learn to ideate together, to assign roles to each other, finding a story and plot to work on, figuring out stage directions. You will be surprised at some of the ideas the children have in them when they work together and independently with minimal guidance from the teacher.
Communication
Divide the children into two groups where one group is given a set of words that they one by one have to communicate to the other group without speaking. The opposite group have to guess the word. This can be fun and energetic for the class and also test their calmness and patience through it. Something like a Dramictionary.
Bus banter
One of the most enjoyable games I once found in a resource was where the classroom transforms into a bus with a bus driver and conductor leading it. The others have to one by one assume characters and enter the bus staying in that character the whole time. When the bus fills up the bus driver and conductor have to try and guess their characters or the emotions they have played out. I really like this one because it shifts the students around from their regular seating, they get to dive deep into their characters and there is an unusual amount of laughter and banter which helps relieve their stress.
I’ve always been grateful to the number of beautiful drama resources out there but over the years you find a pattern that works really well and you can always introduce new games and activities. I believe that what happens in a drama class not only culminates into an end of year performance but also helps in a holistic manner without it being harsh or intrusive. Try these 8 activities for the drama class and you can keep them as a steady part of your lesson planning. Keep calm and be a drama Queen!
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