Drama Lesson Plans for Busy Teachers Book One: Drama Lesson Plans for Busy Teachers, #1

By Louise Tondeur

‘Pick up and teach it’ drama sessions

I want to enable the teaching of creative subjects in an accessible, flexible and down-to-earth way. When I started teaching I noticed that there were hardly any ‘pick up and teach it’ drama session plans available, and so set out to create my own. You’re about to read the newly revised version of those session plans.

Why use drama?

Drama is both a teaching method and an art form. You’ll find it is an accessible way into most topics. You can use it to teach English, PSHE, history, or science. You can use it introduce stories – and every topic has a story attached to it. You can also link up with other disciplines to invent creative arts projects. Drama is good for teaching important skills such as self-confidence, body awareness, collaborative working and self-expression. Drama is an extremely versatile subject. You can even use drama to bring maths or computer programming to life.

What’s included?

All four books include lesson plans and ideas sheets for busy teachers. In the first book in the series you’ll find the following four sections: Foundational Drama Skills, Storytelling, Communication, and Using Props and Costume. You’ll also get a bonus section on putting on a radio play using the Babushka story. In other words, there are forty sessions in this book, divided into four sections, enough material for you to run one drama session a week over the school year (plus the bonus section). You can turn the lesson plans and the individual activities into one off sessions, or use them to build schemes of work. You and your students can add your own topics, learning objectives, stories, or ideas throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louise Tondeur
• Release date: Aug 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386484929

Louise Tondeur

Louise Tondeur published two novels with Headline Review: The Water’s Edge and The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls. Then she travelled for a while, wrote a PhD, started a family, published short stories, poems and articles, and worked full-time as a university lecturer, all the time trying to find time to write amongst the hectic-ness of everyday life. She developed the Small Steps method to help her undergraduate students with time management skills, and to help herself carve out some writing time. Now she shares her productivity tips on the Small Steps blog.

Book preview

DRAMA LESSON PLANS FOR BUSY TEACHERS: 40 IDEAS FOR DRAMA THAT WILL BRING THE CURRICULUM TO LIFE. BOOK ONE BY LOUISE TONDEUR

Published by Suitcase Kids

www.suitcasekidsdrama.co.uk

© 2017 Louise Tondeur

First published in a previous edition by First and Best Education © 2003 Louise Tondeur.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by UK copyright law. For permissions contact: [e-mail]

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HOW TO USE THIS BOOK.

WELCOME!

Welcome to Book 1 in the series called Drama Lesson Plans for Busy Teachers: 40 Ideas for drama that will bring the curriculum to life. This book consists of lesson plans and ideas sheets for busy teachers. If you use one a week, each book will last you for a whole school year.

You can use the lesson plans and the individual activities as one off sessions, or use them to build schemes of work. All four books in the series are supported by a website - www.suitcasekidsdrama.co.uk- where you can download handouts to accompany the lesson plans.

Drama is a wonderful subject in that it is both a teaching method and an art form. You’ll find it is an accessible way into most topics. You can use it to teach English, PSHE, history, or science, for instance (I did a great class with some five year olds about the solar system recently). You can use it introduce stories – and every topic has a story attached to it. You can also link up with other disciplines to invent creative arts projects. Drama is good for teaching important skills such as self-confidence, body awareness, collaborative working and self-expression. Drama is an extremely versatile subject. You can even use Drama to bring numbers or computer programming to life.

WHAT’S INCLUDED?

In this book you’ll find the following four sections: Foundational Drama Skills, Storytelling, Communication, and Using Props and Costume. You’ll also find a bonus section on putting on a radio play.

There are forty sessions in this book, divided into four sections, enough material for you to run one drama session a week over the school year. (Plus the bonus section!) You and your students can add your own topics, learning objectives, stories, or ideas throughout.

You can use the exercises in a variety of ways, for instance, an individual activity might form a springboard for a whole lesson. The activities tend to get more open and more challenging as you progress through each session, as you progress through each section, and as you progress through the book.

There are four books in the series and each one of them starts with this same introduction – that’s because they work independently of one another. The activities in each book are different.

I’m in the UK, so I use British spelling and am familiar with the UK school-system, but most activities will work wherever in the world you are!

WHAT’S THE TARGET AGE RANGE?

Because the activities and sessions are flexible and adaptable, the answer is: it depends. All sessions are suitable for Key Stage 3 (11 – 14 years). Most sessions are suitable or adaptable for primary school aged students (4 – 10 years) – especially if you concentrate on the earlier activities in sessions. Depending on the students’ experience, you’ll want to cut some activities and add others where necessary.

In my own practice, I’ve used these activities with primary-aged and Key Stage 3 students. I’ve also adapted the earlier activities in these sessions for use with pre-school children (3 and 4 years). I’ve used these activities with older teenagers and with adults, and with students and adults with disabilities. Most recently I’ve had pre-school kids making rhythms and pretending to be robots and university students doing character-based ‘hot-seating’. So I really mean it when I say it depends!

WAYS OF USING THESE SESSIONS

1. As ‘pick up and teach it’ lesson plans. Even with almost no resources, as long as you have a space to work in, you can teach these straight from the page, with little preparation, and cut where necessary. You can mine more than one lesson plan at a time. I suggest that you get familiar with some of the games and activities first so you can keep returning to them.

2. With some groups it may be appropriate to work only on the first few activities in sessions. You could mix and match the first two or three activities with activities from the ‘foundational drama skills’ section in Book 1 in this series. This requires some preparation but can still be done ‘on the go’.

3. Use the sections as schemes of work. You’ll need to add your own topic or story in most cases. This requires some ‘thinking through time’ and planning. You could even view individual session outlines as schemes of work, to be developed through the ‘What next?’ activities. Rift on them yourself or with your students and colleagues. This requires extra planning because you’ll need to incorporate a number of your own ideas.

4. As a way of developing a Creative Arts project in your school. Bring in English, Art, Music, Drama and Dance as appropriate. This level requires the most planning and preparation.

CAN I TEACH THE SESSIONS IN ANY ORDER?

Yes, you can use any of the session plans in the four books in any order, depending on the topics or stories you want to cover, or the curriculum you’re teaching right now. Drama is a delightful way to bring the curriculum to life. The great thing about it is that it can be adapted and used in almost any subject. The sessions are designed for maximum flexibility and ease of use, so that you really can ‘pick up and teach’. As I said above, you can also treat each section as a scheme of work – in the order they appear in each book.

I put these four sections in Book 1 because if you’re serious about introducing some drama techniques to your students – techniques you can keep coming back to again and again to enhance their learning – then these are the ones I think you need to start with.

THEATRE-IN-EDUCATION VERSES PERFORMANCE SKILLS

Performance is wonderful thing for some people. You can use many of the activities in this book – particularly the Foundational Drama Skills –to teach performance skills. Being in a performance – either behind the scenes or on stage – is an unforgettable experience. I’m absolutely not knocking performance skills here! That said, in this book, the emphasis is on theatre-in-education rather than performance. In other words, this book is about teaching the curriculum through drama, while building participants’ self-confidence, collaboration and communication skills.

There are some sessions where I’ve suggested that you ask students to share their work with others, but I haven’t focused very much on this aspect. If you want to make sharing / evaluation or performance integral to your classes, you can still make good use of the ideas in this book. I suggest doing a movement and vocal warm up at the start of each session as a formal introduction. You’ll need to allow time at the end of each session, too, for sharing work – probably longer than you think you’ll need in my experience!

A NOTE ON THE BONUS SECTION

I’ve also added a bonus section to Book 1. It’s about putting on a play at the end of the Autumn term, called ‘The Story of Babushka: Creating a Radio Drama with Your Students.’ I’m in the UK, and the Nativity Play is a firm tradition here. The Babushka radio play is intended as an interesting alternative. In fact, I played Babushka when I was at Primary school in a radio play! I don’t remember much about it – but that memory inspired me to write the article that became the bonus section. We performed it ‘live’ behind screens (it was the 1970s) but technology has got easier since then, of course. The Babushka myth may not be relevant or appropriate in your school, your country, or to your way of working. If this is the case, I hope you can still use the activities in the bonus section, as creating rhythms and soundscapes with students is a lot of fun. I’d love to hear about the results – please let me know on the Facebook page.

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