Curated OER
The Cinder-Eyed Cats - Storybook Theater
The students listen to the story "The Cinder-Eyed Cats." The students then chose individual parts to play in a theater like production. The students move like their character, be it a fish, an octopus, a lobster, a cat, etc. Water music...
Curated OER
Reader's Theater: Presenting Asian Folktales
Learners, working in groups, rewrite Asian folktales as Reader's Theater scripts. Depending on grade level, they visit Websites and copy assigned stories. Students then perform their versions for classmates.
Curated OER
Theater: Create a Script
Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and improvisation....
Curated OER
The Art of Improvisation
Students explore the work of 3 for All. In this performing arts lesson, students watch a video segment about the improvisation group 3 for All, study improvisation, and participate in their own improvisation routines.
Mississippi Whole School Initiative
Dream Big...With Your Eyes Wide Open
For many people, Barack Obama's presidency was the next step in Martin Luther King, Jr's dream of America's future. Explore the dreams of Americans past and present, as well as the young Americans in your class, with a set of activities...
The Kennedy Center
Fairy Tale Variations
Here are two great lessons that work together and are inspired by the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods. Young writers and actors will retell the story of "The Frog Prince"Â through games, improvisational script writing, and song....
Curated OER
Folktale Improvisation
Sixth graders present reader's theatre by improvising folktales from different countries. In groups, they produce an improvisation of a folktale story from an assigned reading of a folktale.
Curated OER
MACBETH and the Themes of Ambition,
Learners describe and compare characters and situations in dramas from and about cultures and historical periods, illustrate in improvised or scripted scenes, and discuss how theater reflects a culture.
Curated OER
Animal Farm - The Rest of the Story
Young scholars participate in a reader's theater using farm animals in the novella Animal Farm. In this Animal Farm lesson plan, students evaluate interpretations using the text, personal experience, and historical events.
Curated OER
Theatre Lesson Plan, Performing a Story
Second graders read the story, The Bundle of Sticks, and discuss the story elements within the story; setting, plot, conflict resolution.  In this readers theater lesson, 2nd graders reenact the story in small groups, then reflect on...
Curated OER
Word Bank; Theater
Students are given a word bank relating to theater. For this word bank lesson, students are introduced to a list of words and their definitions. Students then build their vocabulary regarding theatrical concepts.
Curated OER
"Movies That Rock": Moulin Rouge
Upper graders explore musical film and the Bohemian lifestyle common in Europe during the turn of the century through the musical Moulin Rouge. After listening to (or viewing) songs from the movie, they discuss the Bohemian era and how...
Curated OER
Creating and Using a Checklist of Performance Techniques to Critique and Find the "Message" in Mass Media Performances
Students analyze and critique theater events by evaluating and constructing meanings from improvised and scripted scenes and from theater, film, television, and electronic media productions.
Curated OER
Portrait of a Place, Portrait of a Family
Students act out stories based on lives of famous people from Harlem. In this memoirs lesson, students compare the life of the people in Harlem in 1930 to the people of today. Students explore how "home" is different for different...
Curated OER
Sondheim: Voice of Cultural Change
Students explore Stephen Sondheim's contributions to musical theatre in the context of the dramatic cultural shift that occurred in American life in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Johnny Mercer Foundation
The American Musical
General music students learn about the history of popular American music by creating and performing a one-act musical. After researching and creating an American Musical timeline, class members write a song with lyrics using Jam Studio,...
Curated OER
Japanese Noh Masks
Learners examine Japanese theatre and create their own face masks which display certain emotions, props, costumes and perform in improvisational theatrical games.
Curated OER
Greek Theatre Styles
Seventh graders are introduced to the different styles of Greek theatres. As a class they discuss the level of sophistication in different areas and the purpose of the theater. To end the instructional activity, they practice the...
Curated OER
Soho Square
View the film Soho Square. Improvise sequences based around everyday locations and consider how theater and film differ in the way they engage an audience with the group of characters. Develop a group of performances using the extract...
Curated OER
What do You do if You See a Fire?
Pupils discuss what they would do if they saw a neighbor's house on fire and what information they would need to know to tell the 911 operator. They watch as the teacher models how to call 911 and observe that the numbers are called only...
Curated OER
Mountains: A Drama Exploration
Learners dramatize the formation of mountains. In this earth formation dramatization instructional activity, students read Anne Issacs', Swamp Angel, and research the how the layers of the Earth move to form landforms. They work in...
Curated OER
Shadows & Light, Science & Puppetry
Lights, shadows, action, and inquiry await your artistic scientists. They explore the way light travels, absorbs, reflects, and transmits through shadow play. They create folktale-inspired shadow puppets, explore the science of light,...
John F. Kennedy Center
Folktale Theatre
Introduce your middle schoolers to a performance and movement activity that uses their favorite stories from fairytales and folklore. They practice basic acting skills, create dialogues with a partner, and then as guided practice,...
Curated OER
Landscapes of the Mind
Students review Emily Dickinson's biography and examine themes and forms of some of her poems. They measure ways Graham integrates aspects of Dickinson's life and the themes and forms of her poetry into Letters to the World.