Warm-Up of the Week: Explain Communication

Warm-Up of the Week: 

Explain Communication

This week’s warm up has a tricky name. Can you think of a better title for it? Read through the explanation of how to play and post your comment below.

Start by having each student sit on a chair in a circle.

Facilitate a discussion on how people communicate. Some questions to ask might be: do we just use words to communicate? What else do we use to communicate? What happens if we don’t use all these things to communicate? How has technology changed the way we communicate?

Ask a student to volunteer to stand in the middle of the circle. They must also remove their chair from the circle. There should now be one less chair than there are student’s sitting in the circle.

The aim of the game is for the student’s sitting in the circle to switch places with another student sitting opposite them in the circle. The only catch is, they must not speak, use hand gestures or facial expressions. Only their eyes can be used.

When the student’s decide to switch the student standing in the middle of the circle must get to one of the seats before the other student thereby potentially changing who is in the middle of the circle.

NB: Try not to have student’s switch with the person next to them. It’s unfair to the person in the middle and kind of defeats the purpose of the game.

Warm Up of the Week: Yes, Let’s!

I thought I would choose a warm-up game that works perfectly into some of the aspects needed.In improvisation some of the most important concepts that need to be learnt include the idea of making offers and accepting and building on offers. By offering, accepting and adding in improvisation the scene is better able to progress and become more interesting and engaging.This warm-up, Yes Let’s, really starts to get students thinking about making offers and accepting them.

1. Have student’s stand in a circle.

1. Move around the circle in a clockwise direction for the next lot of steps.

1. Each person needs to come up with a simple action. They demonstrate that action to the group by saying, for example “Let’s brush our hair.”

1. Everyone in the circle repeats “Yes, Let’s!” in unison and completes the action.

1. Continue around the circle until everyone has had an opportunity to offer.

Simple but effective, I highly recommend this warm-up activity when  you have free time or for relaxation.