Kindergarten Theater Activities
Introducing theater activities into a kindergarden classroom gives children a chance to express themselves. Drama can build the self esteem of kindergarten-aged children, giving them the confidence to try something new. You need to provide the students with a safe place to improvise, even if it is not exactly the way you or other classmates may do it.
Other People Are Reading
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Picture Book Drama
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After reading a familar story to the class, choose a portion to act out. Divide the class into small groups and give each a page of the book to recreate for the rest of the class. They can decide who plays each character.
Soundtrack Activity
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Read a story to the class that involves a lot of action or animals. Stop frequently to have the class make the sounds that would be heard in the background. For example a story about the city mouse and the country mouse might have beeps or siren sounds as well as cows and chickens. Do some coaching and pull out other sounds they might hear such as clicking heels, rusty gate or boots in the mud. Practice a few times, using hand motions to tell the class when to make louder or softer noises and when to stop. Record the storytelling with the human soundtrack if desired.
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Rhyme Charades
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Practice rhyming words during a theater game that takes place during circle time. Call out a word that has several easy rhymes, such as cat, bear or boat. One at a time a student goes to the center and acts out a word that rhymes with the word the teacher wrote. The others try to guess what the child in the center might be pantomiming. A variation of this game would be to assign each student a letter. One at a time, a student goes to the center to act out a word that starts with their letter.
Knock Knock
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Play a theater game that involves emotions. Start by practicing the way people show emotions. Include words such as happy, sad, jealous, fear, angry or excited. Have one student stand behind a door. This could be the the classroom door itself, a door in the play area or a piece of posterboard they can hide behind. This student knocks on the door and then another student acts as the host and answers. Once the host figures out the emotion, they join in and wait for the next person to knock with a different emotion. Everyone changes mood as different emotions are introduced.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit dancing kid image by Vasyl Dudenko from Fotolia.com
