Starter Activities in Drama:

Tarsia:
students enter the room to find envelopes with jigsaws in. They then have to match words to definition
in silence without knowing the shape of the jigsaw. They are differentiated.
Whats the question?
On W/B....If the answer is Vocal range, whats the question?
Thunks:
Random questions to get the brain going, i.e. What does the wind smell like? Do trees have feelings?
If I borrow a million pounds, am I a millionaire? (more at www.thunks.com)
Whats this?
Picture projected...whats happening, what are the people thinking, where is it? What happened
before, what will happen after.
Who do I belong to? (props of character shown, hair, hat, shoes, etc. What does the prop say of the
character?)
Miming Pictionary (give students a word, they have to draw it or mime it)
Freeze Frame (students come in, tell them to get into a freeze frame of a word, fear, happy, family,
etc. As others join in, they have to fit into the image without speaking. At the end have to see if they
were all right).
Hangman (one at a time, students guess the letter)
Pupil as teacher, get first pair in to summarise last lesson for everyone
Picture projected, students have to say whats being thought and whats actually being said
Question on w/b. Tell me 3 things we did last lesson. Development, what would you expect to be in
this lesson?
Creative words, 4 random words written on W/B. Students have to say how they are linked (radiator,
wire, toffee, wind)
Taboo: Students have to describe a key word without using the word to describe it (they cannot mime
or draw)
Just a minute One pupil starts to speak about a topic. At the first repetition, pause or mistake another
takes over - and so on until the minute is up.
What do you know: Word written on white board, one by one students come up and draw a line from
it (spider diagram) and add something they know about the word. i.e. costume=suggests status
Different shoes: Ask students to change their shoes...If Character Y was put in charge of the
school, what would change? If character X was doing your coursework, what would she focus on?
Dinner party: list of characters written on the board, students come in and choose one. They are then
at a dinner party and improvise the scene. (shy, impatient, overly polite, business man, charity worker,
character x)
Picture: Picture projected on stage, what was happening before, what will happen after?
Design a starter: students design a 5 min starter activity to be used next lesson.

Tree-mendous Outline of a tree on W/B. Teacher writes a word at the bottom of the trunk (character,
space, voice) students then add to the tree with more specific information/ examples on the branches.
Translate.BSL or Morse code projected on W/B. A
word is given to a student. They have to use Morse
code or BSL to communicate the word but have to
do it in a choreographed / rhythmic manner. Idea is
to explore a range of communication.

Mood: Decide on a particular mood you would like students to begin your lesson with calm,
attentive, enthusiastic etc. Ask them to role-play this mood; take them through a series of different
scenarios in which they must maintain it. Then slip into the lesson itself and return to the role-play if
and when required.
Abstract thought: Get students to jot down responses to such questions as:
What shape is grief? What is the colour of emptiness? What is the texture of a rainbow?
Summary: Ask students to provide a summary of what they learnt last lesson or across the unit.
Develop by asking for different styles, i.e. a newspaper report, 60-second news-flash, mime, freeze
frame.
Post-it: Put up a number of different questions around the room and give each student 1-2 post-it
notes. They have 5 minutes to look at the questions and discuss them with others. They must then
vote for which they would like to focus on during the lesson. This is done by sticking their post-it note
by the question. The question with the most post-its becomes the focus of the lesson.
Celebration: Perhaps once a term use the start of the lesson to celebrate the work done with the
class up to that point. Students could vote for awards such as hardest worker, positive influence and
biggest improver. You could show work done at the start and end of the period to show how far the
students have come.
Noises: Play a noise and ask students to respond to it or work out its relevance to the lesson/unit.
(youtube)
Goal setting: If beginning a unit of work, ask students to set their own goals by
creating a chart on the W/B showing What I know about the topic...What I want to know...What I
have learnt...
Slogans: Students create slogans/tag lines for a specific topic. i.e., Drama: putting the Act in
Character.
Press conference: Begin the lesson by calling a press conference you have an announcement to
make and students must take notes and then question you on what has been said. Could be
announcing what the lesson is about, or a provocative statement related to the content etc.