Drama Experiences

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Improv Games

You can find hundreds of improvisation games online to develop social, acting, language arts skills, and more...
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Tableaux Vivant  

  Students can work together to create a tableau (a frozen picture) to demonstrate understanding of a key scene or event in literature or history.
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Pantomime

Include pantomime anywhere and everywhere in your teaching. Children also benefit from enacting and making short pantomime stories or "pantos."
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Storytelling  

  Many of the language arts and social studies core curriculum standards can be addressed through the art of storytelling.
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Soundscapes

Soundscapes consist of the totality of sounds associated with a place or event. Children can record and create soundscapes to explore science, geography, history and more.
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Readers Theatre

Readers theatre is a simple way to engage children with scripts. Follow the two links below for scripts and ideas. 
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Finger Plays

Finger plays are usually short poems with hand and finger actions. You might remember some like "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and see all the people..."
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Puppets

Everything that children can do, puppets can do too! Use puppets to explore any spoken text. Make puppets and puppet shows. 

Drama-Based Instruction

Katie Dawson at University of Texas Austin has an outstanding website on drama-based instruction, including easy-to-follow descriptions of some of the best improvisation games.
​Follow the link:
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Process Drama
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Plays
The Kennedy Center ArtsEdge website has an excellent description of process drama. This CORE learning experience fits well with Language Arts and Social Studies, but could also be applied in Science.
Much can be gained from scripts for plays. The Drama Notebook is a clearinghouse for children's scripts as well as hundreds of accessible and practical drama teaching ideas. Follow the link...​