Drama Activities for Grade
School Students
By Stefano Marrero, eHow Contributor
•
Kids will be smiling after drama activities.
One of the best ways to introduce theater to grade school
students is through drama activities and games. They break the
ice and are especially great to do at the beginning of the year.
Drama activities encourage imagination, stimulate creativity
and help students develop both self-expression and
concentration. Students should be exposed to theater because it
builds confidence, which carries over into all subjects and social
areas. These games are so much fun, students won't even realize
they're learning.
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Simple Drama Games for Kids
Interactive Drama Games
1.
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Mirror Mirror
2.
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3 Different Ways
Pair up students. Each student takes a turn being the
mirror (player A) while the other students (player B)
initiates all the action. Player A must concentrate and
mimic all of the movement and facial expressions of
Player B. The teacher can help students out by calling
out action and emotion prompts like "brush your
teeth," "get ready for a fancy party" or "you just got a
call that you've won the lottery." This is a great
concentration and focus exercise.
Write down different emotional states, like happy, sad,
surprised, tired, or types of people, like old man, baby,
policeman or cowboy on slips of paper. Choose a
simple phrase, like "how are you?" or "shut the door,"
and have students draw three slips of paper and say it
in three different ways, tones, or moods. You may
want to demonstrate a few and point out to them how
the same words, when said in different ways, can
convey different meanings.
3.
◦
Walk This Way
Walk this way is a great exercise in body language. Have
students spread out and start walking around the
room. The teacher calls out prompts like emotions
and/or animals, you can even do a combination like "a
sad elephant." The teacher can also call out scenarios,
like "you are walking barefoot across the hot sand" or
"you forgot your umbrella, and it is starting to rain."
Students must continue moving around in character
until the next prompt is called out. It is a good idea to
set a rule of no contact with fellow students during
this exercise.
4.
◦
What Are We?
5.
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The Great Machine
6.
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Role playing
Have students get into small groups. Secretly give them
an object, like a car, airplane, giant spider, whose
shape they must form as a group. Let them briefly
huddle together and figure out how they will recreate
this object with their bodies. The other students have
to try and guess which object they are. This is a great
exercise promoting cooperation and teamwork.
Students can create a giant human machine. Have one
student start by doing a simple, repetitive movement
using any part of their body. They must also create a
sound to go with it. Once they have started, continue
to choose students to add to the machine. The next
student should go up and stand next to the previous
person and start his own signature repetitive
movement and sound. See how creative the students
can get with their movements and how big of a
working machine they can create.
Role playing is a great improvisation activity. Give ageappropriate scenarios, and have two or more students
create a scene by acting it out together. Great ideas for
this would be two people at an airport or a restaurant.
For older students, you can have them write down the
name of a person on a slip of paper. It can be a
celebrity, like Justin Bieber, or just an occupation, like
fireman or supermodel. Next, have them write down a
place on second slip of paper. It should be a general
place, like a gym, or a famous place, like the Eiffel
Tower. Finally have them write down an action on a
third slip of paper, like ice skating. Separate the slips
of paper in three containers, and have each student
take turns drawing one from each category and acting
them out for other students to guess.
7.
◦
Pantomime or Charades
A great pantomime game that most of us are familiar with
is the age-old game of Charades. The student chooses
piece of paper with a person, object, book title or
movie on it. Without speaking or making sound, the
student acts it out, and the other students try to guess
what it is. For younger children, you may want to
whisper their object to them and stick with easier
things, like playing soccer, being a rockstar playing
the drums.
Another take on this idea would be to
incorporate a prop or even a simple piece of fabric.
Ask students "what could this object or fabric be?"
and have them take turns going around the circle and
quietly acting it out. Children can get creative and use
their imagination to make it into a hat, a musical
instrument or a telephone, for example.