What else have I not considered in teaching improv to young kids?
October 20, 2015 4:00 PM Subscribe
I'm going to be teaching two 30 minute sessions for children living in a homeless shelter while their parents attend a mandatory meeting. I've been a camp counselor, taught after-school programs, etc. so I have experience in this arena but I've never taught an improv class for such young kids (4-10). What games would you recommend? What else am I forgetting?
Historically, this has been a time for more traditional education but after talking to parents, it seems that the kids need a space to feel like kids. I'm planning on basic games, lots of noise and movement. I'm valuing fun over education but I think this would be a good space to talk about emotions, relationships, etc. This will be a weekly event so I'm hoping to build on things as we go along.
Are there resources you can recommend for acting/improv for such young kids? Most of what I've found on google has been geared for older kids. I currently have a long list of games, but I'm curious if I should do some sort of introduction (yes and, no bad ideas, etc.) or just jump right in. I'd love advice from folks who have taught acting/improv to young kids. What else should I consider given these are children experiencing homelessness?
Historically, this has been a time for more traditional education but after talking to parents, it seems that the kids need a space to feel like kids. I'm planning on basic games, lots of noise and movement. I'm valuing fun over education but I think this would be a good space to talk about emotions, relationships, etc. This will be a weekly event so I'm hoping to build on things as we go along.
Are there resources you can recommend for acting/improv for such young kids? Most of what I've found on google has been geared for older kids. I currently have a long list of games, but I'm curious if I should do some sort of introduction (yes and, no bad ideas, etc.) or just jump right in. I'd love advice from folks who have taught acting/improv to young kids. What else should I consider given these are children experiencing homelessness?
I would definitely set some norms and do some "Yes, And" to help people feel safe sharing and taking risks.
I would also encourage incorporating some Image Theatre Games that don't require language or have people tell stories through images. That will help I think with disparities in language skill and help ease people into improvising without having to use words, which might be more scary. Then maybe move onto gibberish and finally do stuff with words.
posted by brookeb at 4:34 PM on October 20, 2015
I would also encourage incorporating some Image Theatre Games that don't require language or have people tell stories through images. That will help I think with disparities in language skill and help ease people into improvising without having to use words, which might be more scary. Then maybe move onto gibberish and finally do stuff with words.
posted by brookeb at 4:34 PM on October 20, 2015
Destination Imagination and Odyssey of the Mind are two creativity programs for kids (age 5-18). The Instant Challenge part of the program offers a wide range of quick improvisations - some are more skit based, some involve building or creating and then making up a story, some require them to think of as many "x" as they can.
This page has some free resources from Destination Imagination that might inspire you.
Odyssey of the Mind calls them spontaneous problems - there are some samples here.
If you like them, you should be able to find more free unofficial resources that coaches have put together to share with each other by googling.
posted by metahawk at 4:36 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
This page has some free resources from Destination Imagination that might inspire you.
Odyssey of the Mind calls them spontaneous problems - there are some samples here.
If you like them, you should be able to find more free unofficial resources that coaches have put together to share with each other by googling.
posted by metahawk at 4:36 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
My son attends a group once a week where kids about that age make up plays (in half an hour). They way they do it is that the teacher comes prepared with a book and some very primitive costumes (often made from paper plates). At the start of class they read the book together, and then they decide what parts each child will "play" and then the kids figure out what movements, improv, etc, they will act out as the adult reads each page of the story (these are picture books, obv), rehearse a few times, and that's it. (And adult is always the reader, kids will sometimes have lines, particularly when a group of characters has to say something). A couple of books that have worked well are "Click Clack Moo" and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" but I'm sure there are others. Books should be short, and should have a fairly flexible number of characters for the cast.
As a bonus, maybe the kids could perform for the parents after the workshop.
posted by anastasiav at 4:43 PM on October 20, 2015
As a bonus, maybe the kids could perform for the parents after the workshop.
posted by anastasiav at 4:43 PM on October 20, 2015
In Drama Camp, which was for ages 5 - 18, we did a lot of charades.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 4:47 PM on October 20, 2015
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 4:47 PM on October 20, 2015
Some kids will likely want to just watch, at least at first. This actually works well because they can serve as your "audience" and help give feedback or just be supportive. For students who seem really disengaged (which is totally understandable), sometimes having a small role assigned can be the key to their opening up. For example, I'll let people serve as timers or refs in our creative classroom games; sometimes these positions are needed and sometimes not but the students who volunteer or get assigned them often get REALLY into the role. You can brainstorm some secondary roles for your improv group.
Could you watch some YouTube videos together about improv? Seeing and hearing it might help people feel more comfortable and confident. And, like Liesl said, I'd prepare some super low-key activities in case people aren't feeling ready to act yet. Just talking about stuff like favorite animals might be a start (and then, of course, people can then act out that animal, etc.)
Good luck! It sounds like a great opportunity for both the kids and for you. I love, love, loved doing improv and wish I had more chances to do so these days.
posted by smorgasbord at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2015
Could you watch some YouTube videos together about improv? Seeing and hearing it might help people feel more comfortable and confident. And, like Liesl said, I'd prepare some super low-key activities in case people aren't feeling ready to act yet. Just talking about stuff like favorite animals might be a start (and then, of course, people can then act out that animal, etc.)
Good luck! It sounds like a great opportunity for both the kids and for you. I love, love, loved doing improv and wish I had more chances to do so these days.
posted by smorgasbord at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2015
Best answer: Caveat: I do not have the experience to speak to this, and I really hope that someone with more experience will weigh in. But if any of these kids have witnessed or experienced domestic or sexual violence, and they're trying to process it, some of them might try to act it out, and others of them could be really freaked out by any kind of violent imaginary play. So while adult improv is (mostly) all about freedom to screw around in a very all-ideas-welcome group fashion (never shoot down an idea, "yes, and" > "wait, but"), you may want to throw more structure in given the ages and potential backgrounds of the kids you're working with.
I really hope someone who's done improv with troubled youth (or even with kids in general? how do you manage child power dynamics and improv, anti-bullying drama teachers of the world?) will stop by this question, because it sounds like a great idea if you can take steps to ensure that they all feel safe - both the ones who may work through their feelings about tough shit by acting it out, and the ones who want to use improv as an escape from the tough shit that is their everyday lives. If nothing else, think about how you can frame the activity to draw some boundaries and make sure that they can talk to you privately if they feel uncomfortable with anything after class.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:20 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I really hope someone who's done improv with troubled youth (or even with kids in general? how do you manage child power dynamics and improv, anti-bullying drama teachers of the world?) will stop by this question, because it sounds like a great idea if you can take steps to ensure that they all feel safe - both the ones who may work through their feelings about tough shit by acting it out, and the ones who want to use improv as an escape from the tough shit that is their everyday lives. If nothing else, think about how you can frame the activity to draw some boundaries and make sure that they can talk to you privately if they feel uncomfortable with anything after class.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:20 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I taught after-school drama for a year to at-risk third and fourth graders. Basically, it was a community center that several schools used as a "go here because you have no after-school care and you are one-step away from either failing or expulsion or both" program. The kids didn't all know each other, and didn't really want to be there, but preferred drama class to the homework part of the program.
We played a lot of improv warm up games like Woosh Bang rather than try anything too complicated, because a lot of them didn't come regularly enough to do or learn something more sustained. And more tradition "scene" improv was too hard to control and certain kids kept introducing inappropriate situations, so eventually we stopped doing that. Eight year olds just aren't good at figuring out the line between fun/funny and mean/bullying/too far, and my co-teacher and I weren't equipped as social workers or therapists to do more.
The "act out a book" suggestion from anastasiav is a good idea -- I wish I had thought of it back then!
We also often played a sound effects/music game the kids loved. I cant find a link because I don't have a name for it, but basically everyone stands in a circle and one student goes in the middle and makes a simple movement and sound (like a stomp, or saying "beep" or other nonsense sounds) in a repetitive beat. It should be simple and relatively slow. The next person also goes into the circle and layers a new, possibly more complicated sound on top of it, also repetitively, and a movement that sort of connects with(but doesn't touch) the first student's motion. For example, if it looks like the person is rolling something you might catch it. Or if someone is stomping, you could simply shift towards and away from them on that same stomping beat. You keep doing it until everyone is making one big, loud, musical Rube Goldberg device. The key is that the kids at the beginning should be older and more patient with doing the same beat for a while without getting faster.
With such a wide range of ages and backgrounds, I think the most important thing is going to be making everyone feel safe, successful, and included. I'd emphasize that improv is about being kind and paying to your fellow actors, no matter how young or "beginner" they are. Everyone has something to offer, and improv is about being generous so everyone gets to play (this is where "Yes And" comes in).
I might also lay some ground rules about touching if and when you do more traditional "act out a scene" improv -- you might have aggressive kids, or kids who have experienced trauma and don't feel safe being touched, and you don't want that to interfere with the play. You can talk about how some stage interaction isn't real and sometimes the people don't even touch even though it looks like they do. (I also did stage combat choreography at the time, so my co-teacher and I did a demonstration to show how we could make it look like we were fighting but we're actually like a foot away from touching. I don't know if that's a good plan for your situation). So "no touching" is our rule in improv too. No touching except for hands-touching-hands like high-fives or handshakes or pat-a-cake games.
posted by alligatorpear at 7:41 PM on October 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
We played a lot of improv warm up games like Woosh Bang rather than try anything too complicated, because a lot of them didn't come regularly enough to do or learn something more sustained. And more tradition "scene" improv was too hard to control and certain kids kept introducing inappropriate situations, so eventually we stopped doing that. Eight year olds just aren't good at figuring out the line between fun/funny and mean/bullying/too far, and my co-teacher and I weren't equipped as social workers or therapists to do more.
The "act out a book" suggestion from anastasiav is a good idea -- I wish I had thought of it back then!
We also often played a sound effects/music game the kids loved. I cant find a link because I don't have a name for it, but basically everyone stands in a circle and one student goes in the middle and makes a simple movement and sound (like a stomp, or saying "beep" or other nonsense sounds) in a repetitive beat. It should be simple and relatively slow. The next person also goes into the circle and layers a new, possibly more complicated sound on top of it, also repetitively, and a movement that sort of connects with(but doesn't touch) the first student's motion. For example, if it looks like the person is rolling something you might catch it. Or if someone is stomping, you could simply shift towards and away from them on that same stomping beat. You keep doing it until everyone is making one big, loud, musical Rube Goldberg device. The key is that the kids at the beginning should be older and more patient with doing the same beat for a while without getting faster.
With such a wide range of ages and backgrounds, I think the most important thing is going to be making everyone feel safe, successful, and included. I'd emphasize that improv is about being kind and paying to your fellow actors, no matter how young or "beginner" they are. Everyone has something to offer, and improv is about being generous so everyone gets to play (this is where "Yes And" comes in).
I might also lay some ground rules about touching if and when you do more traditional "act out a scene" improv -- you might have aggressive kids, or kids who have experienced trauma and don't feel safe being touched, and you don't want that to interfere with the play. You can talk about how some stage interaction isn't real and sometimes the people don't even touch even though it looks like they do. (I also did stage combat choreography at the time, so my co-teacher and I did a demonstration to show how we could make it look like we were fighting but we're actually like a foot away from touching. I don't know if that's a good plan for your situation). So "no touching" is our rule in improv too. No touching except for hands-touching-hands like high-fives or handshakes or pat-a-cake games.
posted by alligatorpear at 7:41 PM on October 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
My husband suggests having kids improvise stories based on images from the book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. He also suggested randomly picking pieces of paper with stock fairy tale characters & making up scenes based on the characters.
posted by larrybob at 9:40 PM on October 20, 2015
posted by larrybob at 9:40 PM on October 20, 2015
As an improviser, I strongly agree with alligatorpear. Keep it to warm-up type games that don't require character interaction. Over time you might find certain kids able to build to that, but I think initially simpler is better*.
Improv takes a lot of trust. In yourself, in your partners. I think you should focus on building that trust via collective play.
I don't have a great memory for the games however! Kind of a downer.
* this is true for adults as well! A lot of improv programs get this wrong I think and start off with scene work instead of the get-out-of-your-head and PLAY work.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:24 PM on October 20, 2015
Improv takes a lot of trust. In yourself, in your partners. I think you should focus on building that trust via collective play.
I don't have a great memory for the games however! Kind of a downer.
* this is true for adults as well! A lot of improv programs get this wrong I think and start off with scene work instead of the get-out-of-your-head and PLAY work.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:24 PM on October 20, 2015
Response by poster: These are all wonderful suggestions, thank you! Would love more anecdotes from folks who have specifically taught drama, improv, etc. for youth who have experienced trauma.
posted by allymusiqua at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2015
posted by allymusiqua at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2015
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posted by Liesl at 4:20 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]