Community Building

Community Building Tools

The tools below can be used to develop a sense of community in your classroom among your students or actors. A sense of community is important in every classroom, particularly when you expect your students to be risk-takers with their engagement in acting and reading aloud. 

Community Building Activities:

Handshake

• You shake someone's hand, saying your name and they in turn say their name

• You can’t let go of their hand until you shake another person’s hand and say your name. 

• Once you have done that for a while, then play it again only saying the other person’s name and then having to say your name.

Names in Circle

• Individually step forward into the circle, “Hi I'm Maggie, I like reading. (then louder) Hi! I’m Maggie!" and everyone claps with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. 

  • It is important to keep the enthusiasm high during the applause for all.

"The sun shines on me..."

• Just Like me game where students say something and if others in the room have the same thing they get up and move chairs, have to move more than one chair away. 

  • Can adapt to review Shakespeare: Favorite parts of shows, favorite lines, motivations, IQ2, etc.

Eyes Up, Eyes Down

• standing shoulder to shoulder

• eyes up and down in sync, if eye contact is made, students must do something and sit

  • eye contact, "villian!", sit

  • eye contact, death scene, sit

Bippity Boppity Boo

• helps students immediately act

• bippity boppity boo- students must try to say boo before the facilitator

• boo- silence

• toaster- students make toaster and bread

• witch- three witches

• bond- James Bond and the bond girls

Splat

• splat master sends a splat to someone in the circle

  • the person who receives the splat from the splat master must duck

  • the people on either side splat towards each other

  • down to two, back to back

    • ask someone to name things and disrupt a pattern

      • Maggie is going to say even numbers, when she says an odd number, turn and splat each other

  • last person to splat wins and becomes splat master

Click, Clack

• Pass a snap from person to person. You must both receive and throw a snap.

• You can add on details

  • noise when you receive and throw

  • throw with your body 

  • walk as you toss

Wolf and Sheep

• there is one wolf on the outside

• everyone else circles up and holds hands

• one person is the sheep, it is everyones job to protect the sheep from being tagged by the wolf