The Young Players is Portland ’s largest drama outreach program. We have hundreds of activities that are accessible to kids and easily integrated into the learning environment. If you are looking for an activity for a specific area of curriculum, e-mail us, and we’ll send you an activity free of charge! We also lead professional development workshops where we teach effective ways to integrate drama into everyday lessons. Teachers almost always remark that it was the best PD they’d ever had. For more information, call our office or read our professional development page.
Here are fifteen original ways to build classroom community. Watch out…some of these are so much fun, the kids will beg to do them every day!
Goal: Getting to Know One Another
The Line Game: Divide the students into two equal groups. You will announce an order that you wish them to line up in, first group to finish their line wins.
“Line up according to height. Tallest on this end, shortest on this end, go!”
“Line up according to your birthday. January on this end, December on this end, go!”
“Line up according to number of brothers and sisters. Most on this end, least on this end, go!”
“Line up according to the number of pets you have. Most on this end, least on this end. Fish count, but dead pets don’t!”
Big Wind Blows (requires chairs or some way of marking places): Ideally, move the desks to the perimeter of the room and mark space with blue tape. Someone in center says “The big wind blows for everyone wearing socks!” Everyone who is wearing socks must move from their place and find a new place. Someone is then stuck in the middle again. At first, the teacher keeps giving the Big Wind Blows suggestion. After a while, invite the students to have you do it, or come up with their own.
The Big Wind Blows for everyone who has a dog.
Plays baseball
Loves pizza
Went to the beach this summer
Read a book this summer
Is scared of spiders
Has a birthday in January
Hates broccoli
Loves broccoli
Etc.
Emotional Gallery: Invite students to take two sheets of paper. Play a piece of emotional music (without words). Instruct them to take the first sheet of paper, while listening to the music, choose one or two colors and scribble on the paper. After a minute or two, stop the music. Ask students: “What were you feeling?” “What kind of images did the music remind you of?” On the second sheet of paper ask students to draw one of the pictures they just imagined.
a. A place or person that makes them feel angry
b. A place or person that makes them feel peaceful and happy
c. A place or person that makes them feel sad.
After everyone has finished, ask students to place their pictures on the floor, putting pictures that have the same ‘”feel” to them next to each other. Invite students to take a walk in the “Emotional Gallery.” Each student is to walk around the gallery to select a picture they relate to in some way. They are to stand next to the picture they select. When everyone has made a choice, ask each person to state in one sentence what feelings they see expressed in the picture and why they feel connected to the picture.
Emotional Gallery Scene (advanced, for older students): Continuing the activity above, divide the class into groups of 4, putting people in groups based on the pictures they selected. Put people into groups with pictures that express similar feelings. In groups, ask students to tell each other about times when they have felt the emotions expressed in the picture they have selected. Suggest that students begin with the phrase “This picture reminds me of the time when I felt…” Groups are to select key moments from each group member’s description and make a frozen picture of the incident. If there are four people in the group, the group will stage four frozen moments that represent the most interesting or emotional moments shared by each group member. All group members are to be part of each frozen picture. Encourage groups to plan the order of images and rehearse. Ask groups to suggest a title for their sequence of scenes.
The Interview Game: In pairs, students take turns interviewing each other. Each student is given three minutes to ask questions of their partner. Encourage them to try and discover and remember as many details as possible. Have each student introduce their partner and give a short report on what they have learned about them. For younger students, give them three specific questions to ask and remember: name; favorite movie; and a food he/she dislikes!
Tips:
*Demonstrate with one student first. You introduce the student and lead by example.
*Never say, “If you are too shy, you can sit this one out.” All kids will be able to do this, and saying this up front actually exacerbates their fear.
*This is an excellent activity for getting kids ready to give presentations.
Variation: Students listen to each other tell a story entitled, “The Funniest Thing That Ever Happened to Me.” Each person’s contribution may be based on either a real or a fictitious event.Aim for conviction in story telling. See if listeners are able to guess which stories are true and which have been made up.
Goal: Working Together
Beat the Bunny OR Lions and Tigers—(Kindergarten to grade 3). Players sit in a circle. Two children on the opposite sides of the circle, hold small objects, (stone ball etc.). One is called a lion, and the other a tiger. On a signal the players pass the objects to the right as quickly as they can. The fun is in trying to get one animal to overtake the other.
Walk Across the Room in a Straight Line: Have the players line up abreast of one another, and walk from one end of the room to another, focusing on staying in a straight horizontal line.
Who Started the Motion: (Players stand in a circle and mimic one player who leads them in a series of slow movements.) One Player is sent from the room while another Player is selected to be the leader who starts the motion. The outside Player is called back, stands in the center of the circle, and tries to discover the leader who is leading the other Players through different motions (moving hands, tapping feet, nodding heads, etc.) Leader may change motions at any time sometimes even when the center Player is looking directly at the leader. When the center Player discovers the leader, two other Players are chosen to take their places.
Tips for playing Who Started the Motion: Don’t all look at the leader. At first this seems like a contradiction, but the students eventually realize that as long as some people–probably the ones opposite the leader in the circle–are looking at the leader, the rest can look at those people. usually the best thing is for everyone to “mirror” someone opposite them in the circle. This means “it” cannot pick the leader by following everyone’s eyes. Leader looks at someone. The leader is the only person in the circle who is not compelled to look at someone else. If he allows his eyes to wander, “it” can easily pick him out this way.
Don’t make noise. Any movement–such as clapping, snapping or slapping–that makes a sound will give the leader away, since he will probably be slightly ahead of everyone else. Rather than telling the players these “rules” try and coach them to figure them out for themselves.
Lifting a Mirror-For this game, you need a long piece of rope. Tie a knot in it and place it in a circular shape on the floor. The group stands round it and everyone gets ready to pick it up. Now imagine that it is a large circular mirror. The group’s task is to pick it up together, lift it to waist height and put it down again without losing the illusion of the mirror. In other words, everyone must work together with awareness to keep the mirror level. Once they have accomplished it, they could try again, lifting it higher and perhaps tilting it, using eye contact or under the leader’s guidance.
Diamonds: Choose four students to come up on stage and de mo nstrate. Have them stand in relation to one another like a baseball dia mo nd, each person facing the audience. The person at “home plate” begins a mo vement, slow and methodical, like you did for the mirror exercise when they came in. The players behind the leader mirror him/her. When the leader is ready, she pivots to her left. All players follow her lead, making a new person the leader of the dia mo nd. This is really beautiful when performed to music. After one group has de mo nstrated, the remaining students can form their own dia mo nds. This may also be done with small groups on each point of the diamond, instead of one person, potentially involving the entire class.
Elephant, Giraffe, Palm Tree: Form a circle with one person in the middle. The middle person will point to an individual and the person pointed to along with the persons on each side will have to form what was called out. (Either an ELEPHANT, GIRAFFE, OR PALM TREE, described below.)
ELEPHANT- Middle person (one pointed to) will form an elephant trunk by putting arms straight in front of you crossed at the wrists. Persons on each side will form the ears of the elephant by bending toward middle person, cupping around the mouth with hands as if whispering to the middle person.
GIRAFFE- Person pointed to raise arms above head, arms extended fingers closed. Side people will grab middle ones waist bending over.
PALM TREE- Middle person raise arms above head in “Y” formation, fingers open. Side people do the same but lean toward outside, away from the middle person. The object of the game is to try to keep changing all the time. The game has to be played quickly. As soon as an object is formed, the person in the middle of the circle has to point to someone else.
Team Pantomime-Places: Choose a “place” and have half of the class come up one at a time to create a tableau of that place. Each child could declare what she is as she takes her place in the scene.
Environments
Bottom of the sea
Rainforest
Desert
An island
Riverbank
Outer space
The beach
Places
Park
Public Swimming Pool
The Zoo
Grocery Store
Restaurant
Playground
Fitness Gym
Goal: Getting Kids into Groups
If you are tired of “counting off” your students when you need to put students into small groups, here are three imaginative ways to do it. In addition to accomplishing your goal of getting kids into groups naturally, these activities also prepare kids for working together!
3 Noses: A fun and silly game. Let everyone walk leisurely around the room. When you shout ’3 Noses’ the players must form little groups, each group consisting of 3 touching noses. Use your imagination – say 4 feet, 3 hands, 2 ears, 9 fingers, 5 hips, 4 elbows, 3 heads, 7 left big toes, 4 little fingers. Save the number you want the groups to be in for last!
Ten Second Objects: Desks pushed to side of classroom, kids move about the space randomly, perhaps to music. No touching. The name of an object is called out and kids must find the three or four people closest to them and make the shape of that object out of their own body shapes. The leader counts down slowly from ten to zero. Usually every group will find a different way of forming the object. Examples could be: a car, a ship, a washing machine, a fire, a clock, an eggbeater, – anything you like. You could choose objects from a story you are reading or a theme you are exploring. Groups can also be given a few minutes to devise two objects of their own which the rest of the class try to guess.
Find Your Family: In this game, kids are put into groups organically, by finding the other members of their “family.” The teacher gives out slips of paper containing last names and roles in the family. Print out for Find Your Family. (Jones-brother, for example). First, asses how many kids are in the class, and how many groups they would make, then organize your slips accordingly. If your goal is to put kids in groups of five, and there will be only four in one group, take away one family member slip for one group before beginning play.
Each player is given one slip of paper and they must walk around trading papers with everyone else on the room. They should try to make as many exchanges as possible, and they should not be looking at which papers they are receiving. The leader then calls out “Find your family”. The players must find the other members in their family. When they have found them, they must sit in order from dad to baby in a line on the floor. The leader may also give out specific instructions, for example “Find your family without talking”.
Variations-make your own “family” of animals you are studying, countries you are studying, weather, geometric shapes, etc.. For “animals,” you could hand out slips of paper with the names of animals on them and have the kids MOVE like their animal until they find their “family.” Forgo the switching of papers for this version. This is especially effective and fun for younger students. Make sure to use animals that move in particular ways (snake, frog, chicken, penguin, elephant, monkey, giraffe, spider, hummingbird, etc.)
