Top 10 Drama Strategies to Do With Younger Grades:
- Connection chains/connection webs
- Tableaux
- Position mapping
- In a group of...
- News report
- Gibberish
- Caption making
- Alter-ego
- Mirroring
- Picture Walk
With this strategy, younger students are able to discover different connections for themselves. They start to develop and practice their creativity and thinking skills as they must find similarities with other students, more so if they must take on a particular role/character. This also helps to develop a warm and friend community which is really important in the primary grades as drama, like any other subject, is most likely still being introduced as a relatively new concept for the students. This strategy also allows students to be active, and can even be linked with physical activity as they must be able to balance. This could be made a little more challenging by having students use different body parts (e.g. elbows, knees, feet) to link with each other instead of using their hands.
Tableaux
Tableaux is a great activity for young students as they are developing their motor and balance skills while holding different poses. When doing this with young children, teachers must consider how long students hold the pose/scene for, especially since younger students tend to have difficulty staying still for long periods of time. One method that might help is by playing soft, calm, soothing music in the background and have students stay quiet and focus on the music instead of talking with one another or fidgeting. Students can do tableaux for stories read in language arts, for art pieces they have seen, for representing a shape, etc. The possibilities are endless and the best part is that, when done in groups, it builds great communication and teamwork skills!
Position Mapping
This is another activity that has students getting up and being active. Students must be aware of themselves and their position, along with the object (or issue) found in the centre of the room. This is a great way of getting young children to share their opinions or views of an issue/topic based on where they stand in the room. This can be done as a diagnostic or formative assessment. For example, if the object in the middle represents a new science concept, such as forces and movement, students can position themselves in the room with how familiar they are with the concept. As a formative assessment later on in the unit, students can once again position themselves in the room with how comfortable they are with what they know/have learned with science. In the formative assessment, those who are still farther away from the object might still be confused on some concepts, hence the distance from the object.
In a Group of...
This activity is great to do with younger students, especially for those who are still learning how to count. One cross-curricular possibility is to link it with math. Students can make different shapes with a number of people. For example, making a diamond with a group of 8 students. Another possibility is to link it with music where you tell students to get in a group and to create a type of rhythm, keeping in mind how long to hold for whole notes, half notes, etc. Once again, this can develop great teamwork and communication skills!
News Report
News report is an excellent way of having young students build on their oral communication and presentation skills. In addition to this, they are also developing their teamwork skills as group members must plan what to present together. This strategy also gives each student a chance at exploring different roles (e.g. those who ask questions and those who answer). This would be even more fun for younger students to do if they had costumes and props to use (e.g. toy microphones). This can be combined with the media literacy unit, having students looking/researching newspaper articles/topics and then reporting on it, individually or in groups. Students can also do a news report on a controversial issue found in a book that is being read in class. If students are doing a science experiment or researching for things in social studies, the teachers can have the students present the findings through this dramatic news report strategy.
Gibberish
Gibberish is another excellent activity to do at any age. With a younger group of students, gibberish allows them to have fun while developing their expressions and use of body language. For younger students who are still having trouble saying what they want to or for those who stutter a lot, this would be a great strategy to build up their confidence. Even at a young age, students can learn how to use non-verbal cues to help them discuss what they want to. Any language barriers (e.g. from a student who does not speak the same language) would no longer be important as students rely on those non-verbal cues. This activity can once again be linked to presentations for any category. Whether it be for social studies where 'talk' about customs and celebrations, or reporting on what happened during a science experiment. It truly is a wonderful activity to use!
Caption Making
Through caption making, students are able to reflect and write down a quick explanation or thought associated with the action they were doing. This not only helps to develop their writing skills, but also their critical thinking skills as students must determine what it was that they tried to present to other students. Other than being linked to language through writing, this activity can also be linked to whatever subject the tableaux is associated. For example, if the tableaux was about fractions and a student was cutting a pie in half, they could write down what it was they were doing through a caption.
Alter-Ego
The alter-ego provides students a fun way of thinking and seeing how a person might make decisions. The teacher can give students very easy topics or dilemmas, such as whether or not the student should share toys with another student. This strategy may need several prompts from the teacher for those students playing opposite roles (one positive, one negative), but this activity can really help students develop their critical thinking skills. Another modification that would be made for younger children would be to have each student develop at least 5 opinions/pieces of advice, and then take turns saying their opinions (like in a debate). Depending on the topic/issue chosen, this can be used for a number of subjects, such as with healthy living (food choices), in math (determining whether or not an answer is correct or not), etc.
Mirroring
As described on the main page, mirroring can be easily done as a quick, fun, warm up activity to a lesson. They will be developing their teamwork skills through this activity. This strategy can be linked with other hands-on activities. For example, for physical education, students can practice their balancing with a partner who has to mirror him/her. Also, when linking it to dance, students will be able to grasp the concept of mirroring the teacher/dance instructor so that they will be able to do the moves as well. It would also develop their visual-kinesthetic skills as they must control their body to do the actions that they see their partner doing.
Picture Walk
This activity is great for students to do as a formative assessment. Students can represent what they have learned and what they remember from previous lesson(s). To make it easier, students can even work in pairs or a group of three in order to represent the fact or concept they remember. For example, students can do their tableaux based on a science unit, representing the types of forces. This develops their creativity skills, thinking skills, gross motor skills, and communication skills. Students must think of information/a fact that they have learned and then be creative in representing it through a tableaux, holding it, and then later explaining what they did to the rest of the class.
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