Learning about literature can be so much fun; it can also be made more accessible through projects and dramatic play. As they explore theme, character, and setting, the class gets creative and makes a dramatic recreation of a classic...

Musical theater is a trifecta, requiring cast members to be actors, singers, and dancers. Help theater arts students develop these skills with a unit designed to prepare them for a staging of a musical.

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...

Introduce middle schoolers to playwriting and the elements of drama with a six-session storytelling unit that encourages kids to expand their acting and writing skills. The 12-page packet includes overviews of the lessons,...

Introduce young actors to the key elements of performance with this handout that defines key staging terms and activities.

There's no doubt that dramatic play and creative movement are both essential for a healthy early childhood education. Here is a lesson that promotes both. Youngsters think of activities and emotions. The words are written on pieces of...

Read and act out folktales, fairy tales, or myths from various Asian American cultures with your class. Each group reads a story aloud and then works together to create a short play or skit about the story. Suggestions for stories are...

Grow young performers with storytelling. Elementary schoolers listen to the story "Little Red Riding Hood" by Mike Lockett, highlighting dialogue as they listen, and then act out the story. This is based on a story told by Mike Lockett...

Students investigate the concept of different words and how they are used in specific texts. They develop scripts based upon readings and then design props and costumes to act out the new text. Students read to one another using the...

Students dress like Chaucer's pilgrims in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and act out a skit revealing Chaucer's description of each pilgrim.

In this Opera worksheet, students explore the history of opera and identify examples of a recitative. After reading a short conversation between two people, students create their own recitative. They write their own introduction to a...

Young scholars connect a scene from a play they are reading to events in their own lives. Working in male/female pairs, students act out a scene from "Hamlet." Pairs work to role play a scene as an extension of the one they have read,...

First graders imagine the house they live in. They think about the colors, materials, shape, size and location of their home. Students read and discuss the book "Houses." They perform this book as a Reader's Theater using a script.

Students engage in a lesson looking at a major scene of a Shakespeare play. They assume the role play of being the director and apply problem solving skills in order to conduct the scene. Others must switch roles and take on the roles of...

Students create and perform based on cuttings from various plays and literature to demonstrate the learning of the process of improvisation. Students connect improvisation with theatre and real life. Students participate in a class...

Students listen to the story The Mitten, and visit a website about the story's author. Students create masks of the animals from the story and present a play of the story.