Musical Theater lesson plans

GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME-JUST LIKE ME!Classroom Lesson Plans Here are links to some lesson plans I've developed for use in my Creative Drama Classroom (and a few games and lessons from others as well). All of these lessons have been tested and proven successful in the classroom. Let me know if they work for you. Have a great lesson plan you'd like to share? Send it to me! I'll try it out and post it here. I'm hoping eventually to have a large library of proven lesson plans here.

To help you find just what you need, I've sorted these lessons in a few different ways:

Lesson Plans Sorted by Age Level Most of these lesson plans work with a large age range (with appropriate adjustments in level of sophistication), but I've listed them here in approximate order, from youngest to oldest. These lessons are presented with fairly specific instructions, for the most part, but should not be understood as carved-in-stone methods. Every teacher will have her or his individual slant on these activities.

• A collection of ideas for using a picture book to start a Drama activity. Listed first here because the ideas vary widely as to appropriate age level.
• A first character game. For first-time drama students.
• A pantomime guessing game about nursery rhymes. For Pre-Kindergarten and up.
• A narrative pantomime about an apple tree growing from a seed. For Elementary and younger.
• A narrative pantomime about personal space and visualizing colors.
• A narrative pantomime about emotion and drama in music and paint.
• A small collection of lessons and lesson variations about the rainforest. For Pre-Kindergarten and up.
• A fun game that requires critical thinking skills. For Elementary students.
• A role-playing game about friendship and animals. (Nothing to do with the Disney film.) For Elementary students.
• An activity that teaches younger children about seasons and weather or that can be used with older students as an improvisation game. For Elementary and older.
• A narrative pantomime about space and visualizing space, and about community and friendships. For Elementary and older.
• A narrative pantomime about using our senses and the First Thanksgiving. For Kindergarten and up.
• A pantomime project based on the famous story. Teaches analytical thinking skills and body awareness. For Kindergarten and up.
• A game of rhymes and pantomime. For Kindergarten and up.
• An imaginary journey that teaches geography and cultures. For Elementary students.
• A physical creativity game. For Elementary students.
• A game of posing and creating, which allows students to see the creative process from the inside and the outside. For Elementary and older.
• A collection of mirroring exercises. For all ages.
• A collection of puppet-making and puppetry projects.
• Sensory awareness, imagination, story-making and concentration all are enhanced by this meditation-like activity. For around 3d grade to adult.
• A big lesson about movement, body language, and the ability to consciously control our movements and the impressions we make with them. For older Elementary through adult.
• Three lessons designed around a third-grade science unit on energy and the three states of matter. For Elementary students.
• A movement game of building on one anothers' ideas. For older Elementary through adult.
• An improvisation game of creative movement. For all students.
• A big project. Guides a class to cooperatively write their own original story. Can be used to generate a story for the Group Playwriting Project. For Elementary students.
• Another big project. Guides a class to cooperatively write their own play from an existing story. For older Elementary students.
• Supports Social Studies, History, or Current Events curricula. Involves improvisation, group planning, and performance. For older Elementary students.
• Supports a Social Studies unit about the Oregon Trail. Examines the nature of propaganda, as well as the nature of advertising in today's world. For older Elementary students.
• This is not really a lesson plan. It is a narrative description of the entire project, which took several months, by which my fourth-graders and I wrote and produced a play about the Oregon Trail. For older Elementary and up.
• A pantomime guessing game that teaches the idea of social roles within any society, and supports a Social Studies curriculum in world cultures. For older Elementary students.
• A pantomime game that explores ways to communicate without words. Can be used as a primer to more elaborate Theatre Games, or to support a Social Studies curriculum about immigrants. For older Elementary and up.
• An improvised scene about early humans. For older Elementary and up.
• Students create their own magical rituals while exploring the importance of ritual to early (and modern) cultures. For older Elementary and up.
• A lesson using masks to teach body language. Can be related to a Social Studies unit on Greek Theatre. For older Elementary and up.
• The first of what I hope will be many pages of games and lessons from other teachers. A collection of concentration, warm-up and improvisation games from a friend.
• A pantomime and improvisation exercise. For older Theatre students
• An exercise designed to teach concepts about Classical Greek drama in a hands-on way. For older Middle School and up.
• A fun and fast-paced improvisation and teamwork game. For Middle School and up.
• STORY STORY: A fun improvisation, storytelling and pantomime game. For Middle School and up.
• I AM WALKING-INSTANT VERSION: A game of cooperation and communication. For Middle School and up.
• A wacky concentration game that makes you think on your feet. For older Theatre students.
• A complex and challenging game of characters and observation. For older Theatre students.
• Just for fun. For Middle School and up.
  
• A challenging game of improvisation and creativity . For Advanced Middle School and up.
  
• An exercise for helping young actors more fully inhabit their characters. For Middle School and up.
  
• A writing exercise, really. Great for getting over writer's block. For Middle School and up.
  
• A collection of warmup exercises and improvisation games collected from various places. For older Theatre students.

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/ / / / / Lesson Plans Sorted by Type These lesson plans are divided into the following categories (Since many of these lessons do several things at once, they may appear in several lists.) See above for descriptions.