When I first started teaching, I didn’t quite know how to approach the drama section of our art curriculum. We would do a few skits, occasionally play a version of Bus Stop where one kid had to make another laugh, and call it a day. The skits made several students nervous, and it didn’t take long for my class to get bored of Bus Stop. I wanted to breathe some life into our drama activities and make things fun again. Improv games were a perfect fit!
I don’t know why it took me so long to try improv with my students, because watching a local improv troupe was one of my favourite date nights when my husband and I were younger. The first time he took me to one of their shows, I was certain I was going to be bored out of my mind and would have to force laughter at lame improvised jokes. I couldn’t have been more wrong; within minutes I was laughing my head off! This year, I finally took some of the games from those shows and brought them into my classroom. I aimed to spend about half an hour a week playing these games with my students and we always end up howling. If you’re completely unfamiliar with improv, consider looking into whether your community has a local improv troupe with shows you can try out. You can also find long-form improv on Netflix’s Middleditch & Schwartz; it’s not kid-friendly, but it will get you acquainted with the fluidity of improv.
Improv is all about play, so the actors are called “players”. If time is short, I will usually give each group of players a minute to be ‘onstage’ (a.k.a the carpet) but sometimes I just let them go until it seems like a good time to stop.
Popsicle Stick Prompts
I have a whole bunch of popsicle sticks in a drawer by my desk so that this game is ready to go at anytime! On one side of each stick, I have a character (ex. Mechanic, rabbit, teacher, etc.). On the other side, I have a scenario (ex. On a roller coaster, having a temper tantrum in a candy store, etc.). I also have popsicle sticks with students’ names on them. I pull two students’ names and ask them to come to the front of the room. Then I pull a scenario. To keep things moving along, I sometimes assign a role to at least one of the students to get them started. If they are ready to jump right in, I don’t bother assigning a character. Players act out the scenario right away without any planning or discussion.
Actor’s Nightmare (requires a fluent and comfortable reader)
Two players come up to the front of the room. A volunteer provides a scenario (ex. A grandpa and his granddaughter are going on a plane). Another volunteer grabs a random book from the classroom library and gives it to one of the players. Alternatively, you can be the one to give the book because you know who would and would not be comfortable reading aloud under pressure. The player without the book begins the scene. The player with the book can only use lines from the book. These have to be full phrases, not just cobbled together words. Often this means they will be frantically flipping through the book and there will be pauses in the scene but that seems to add to the humour somehow. The scenes tend to get wild pretty quickly, and they’re always a good time!
Teacher’s Choice (requires a fluent and comfortable reader)
The teacher projects a word document on the board, calls three players to the front, gives a scenario, and assigns roles. For example, the teacher might say: “Kendall and Shauntay, you are spies and you are unhappy with the mission that Aiko just assigned you.” Choose one player and designate them as the Teacher’s Choice. This person can only say lines that you type up and project on the board. They can choose how to say them (sincerely, sarcastically, etc.) but they have to say those lines and those lines only! Everything the other players say must make sense with what the Teacher’s Choice is saying.
Film Dub
Two players are chosen and given thirty seconds to quickly decide on a scene they want to act out. Two more players are chosen to be the dubbed voices who ‘translate’ the scene. When you say “go”, the first two players begin acting out their scene… but they can only speak gibberish! The other two players do their best to ‘dub’ the scene in English simultaneously.
Tap Out
Two players are called to the front and given a scenario by the teacher or audience. The teacher or a volunteer starts a thirty-second timer as soon as they begin. When the timer dings, a volunteer jumps in, taps one of the players on the shoulder, and takes over that role. The original player quietly rejoins the audience. The aim of this game is to keep the scene going on in a logical way while players swap in and out! If you have very eager improv players, I suggest lining up volunteers who want to tap in so multiple students don’t try to jump in at the same time. I would also suggest alternating tapped-out roles so the person who just tapped in doesn’t get tapped right back out again.
Do-Run-Run
This is more of a song than a drama game, but it requires quick-thinking and improvisation! It’s also great for practicing rhymes. This video of an improv troupe playing this game explains it way better than I could.
Here’s how it goes in a nutshell:
- Pick a few ‘players’
- Have someone suggest a name (preferably a one-syllable one)
- The first player plunks the name into the song (ex. There once was a boy whose name was Tim)
- The next players all need to come up with rhyming lines (ex. He was really tall and kind of slim).
- When a player stumbles on a rhyme, they are out. When the song ends successfully, just pick a new name and start over.
- The last one to survive wins!
Have you tried any of these improv games with your students? Do you have other drama games that students love? Share them in the comments below! After all, sharing is caring!
