Acting Class with Mama Drama

The art of make believe is my favorite art of all!  I'm convinced that if everyone had to participate in 15 minutes of theatre sport a day this world would be a much brighter place.  

Our class started with this question.
 What are actors?

Estee's answer

The people who get to be on stage and play pretend for all the people watching.

We went over different emotions that we can express with our face.  

Then played the clown game, were we have to put on different clown expressions and then wash our face and put on a new one. (happy clown, sad clown, afraid clown...)

The mat then became our stage and we did vocal exercises.  We practiced using our big and loud voices while reciting lines like 

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary"
and

"T is for Texas and Tennessee too"

These vocal exercises are also very good for Estee's speech therapy.

We did a fun movement and counting exercise while pretending 

we were skiing down a mountain.  

Then we went across the room pretending different things

our leg was broken

Wind storm

So tired

cold and snowy 

 Next we played a dress up game.

I had 8 different bags with different costumes or props in them.  The girls had to go into the other room and put the costume or prop on.  I also had created a horse (out of a laundry basket and stick horse) They had to come out in costume and introduce themselves and their pet horse and make believe they were that character.  Some were easier then others.

Estee was a fireman and was trying to get to a burning building but her horse was too tired and wouldn't go fast enough. 

Coppelia rode horses in the circus and her horse wasn't fast enough so she had to beat him with a whip so he would go faster.

note: I think she saw this on Dumbo but we will address the issue of cruelty to animals soon.

Then came the Super Saver girl and her saver horse. They save the people from the bad people who steal.  She acted out a who scene complete with negotiations with the bad guys and ninja high kicks when they wouldn't listen.

A scary witch and horse named Evil.  This scene became a very exciting musical number.

Then we finished our lesson acting out "The Giving Tree"
I have some video of this but my computer is acting like a dinosaur so maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

Week 1 is complete.  Thanks for reading and I hope I'm giving you some fun activities or even just a bit of inspiration to play with your kids and make this summer magical.

Much love,
Hannah, Coppie and Estee