Year 1

Strategy: Blind Contour Drawing

Purpose: Students practice drawing and close looking. Great for teaching students to draw what they actually see versus what they think they see.

Materials/Playing Space: Pencils, Everyday objects, or images of art works

Description:
Step One: Pick objects for students to draw. Place them in front of them. These can be everyday objects from around the classroom (i.e. stapler, pencil box, scissors, erasers, etc.)

Step Two: Have students pick a point on the object where the eye can begin its slow journey around the contour or edge of the object.
Remind students that the eye is like a snail, barely crawling as it begins its journey. When the eye begins to move, so should the hand holding the pencil.
Remind students that at no time should they look at their hand while drawing.

Step Three: Have students draw the entire contour of the object without lifting their pencil from the paper.

Notes/Sidecoaching: Emphasize to the students that they shouldn’t look at their paper while drawing and that their drawings will not look exactly like their subject.

Integration Ideas:
Reading: great for practicing on focusing on the whole picture and important details
Writing: Have students write a list of adjectives to describe their object before drawing. After drawing, have them add to their list based on what they observed. You can also have students write about what their drawing actually came out looking like versus what the object looks like.

Social Studies: have students practice drawing parts of a portrait of a historical figure or scene. After drawing, ask them about what kind of details they noticed that they didn’t notice before and what those details might mean.

PAIR Partner Handbook

Strategy: Conducted Story

Purpose: narrative arc, continuity, improv, story structure, teamwork

Materials/Playing Space: none

Description: 4 players stand in a shoulder to shoulder line. the teacher acts as the “conductor”. The objective is to tell a complete story from beginning to end using logical sequencing. Whenever the conductor points to one of the four students, they will begin speaking. Then, the conductor will point to another student, and they will have to pick up where the previous student left off, even if it was in the middle of a sentence. This continues until the story has reached a resolution.

Notes/Sidecoaching: It may be helpful to ask the students in the “audience” for material to help inspire the story. For example, you could ask for one or two of the following:

Main character’s name
What kind of animal is the main character?
What job does the main character have?
What is the main character’s big problem?
What is the setting for our story?

Integration Ideas: beginning/middle/end, creative writing, narrative writing, etc.

You could also adapt the game for a review or pretest of prior knowledge for example, instead of asking the group to tell a story, you could ask them to tell you everything they know about animals that live in the ocean, pollution, Abraham Lincoln, etc.

PAIR Partner Handbook | Games as Metaphor

Strategy: Machines

Purpose: To make players interdependent.

Materials/Playing Space: Open space

Description: One player enters the playing area and becomes part of a large object or organism (animal, vegetable, or mineral). Examples include a machine, clockworks, abstract mechanisms, animals, natural elements. As soon as the nature of the object becomes clear to another player, he or she joins as part of the whole. Play continues until all are participating and working together to form the complete object. Players may assume any movement, sound, or position to help complete the whole.

Possible Variations: Create machines with themes (school, etc.). Try taking out a piece of machine & observe the affect (a nice metaphor for interdependence).

Notes/Sidecoaching: This game is useful as a warm-up or as a close to a session, as it generates spontaneity and energy. Players often stray from the original “idea” of the first player, resulting in fanciful abstraction.

The teacher should use side coaching to help single players join in, those who fear they may be guessing wrong about the object that is forming, or those who rush to join in without awareness of the whole.

Debrief: How would you describe our machine? How did each player add to it? What does this machine say about our theme?

Integration Ideas: Cooperation, interdependence, inventions

PAIR Partner Handbook | Viola Spolin | Games as Metaphor

Strategy: Exploding Atom

Purpose: To compare and contrast information and opinions

Materials/Playing Space: A room that can be divided into 3 areas; no materials required. You could create 3 signs if desired for each area of the room: agree, not sure, and disagree.

Description: Clear a space in the room and designate three sections in the following order: I agree, I’m not sure, I disagree. Read out prepared statements such as: “I like to watch movies.” “I think people with money should share with those who are poor,” etc. Ask the students to vote with their feet by standing in the section that best expresses their opinion. Discuss.

The goal of this activity is to ask everyone to think about the subject matter in the statements, begin to feel comfortable sharing their point of view in the group, and earn about other people’s point of view.

Notes/Sidecoaching: This activity is about being nonjudgmental, listening, and agreeing to disagree. Support these behaviors.

This is not a debate. No one can respond to anyone else’s opinion. Make it very clear that you won’t tolerate a moment of the space feeling unsafe during this activity.

No one has to speak. People can say “pass” or “it’s been said.”

Always have the smallest group discuss their choice last.

Integration Ideas:
Language Arts: Connect this activity to themes from your readings. Challenge students to explore their own personal connections or opinions about the theme. Have students write about a time when they dealt with a similar issue.

Social Studies: Connect this activity to an issue in history. Challenge students to explore their own personal connections to or opinions about the issue.

Science: Connect this activity to ethical questions in science. Challenge students to explore their own personal connections or opinions about these questions.

PAIR Partner Handbook | Michael Rohd

Strategy: Living Portraits

Purpose: Make inferences about character/subject from an image. Work with a group to translate those choices into a physical depiction.

Materials/Playing Space: Portrait reproductions (one for each group), Costume items (hats, scarves, flowers, etc.) if desired, but not necessary for the activity.

Description: Divide class into groups or 3 or 4. Give each group a portrait. Ask groups to look at their assigned portraits carefully and determine some of the qualities of the person depicted. Have them choose 3 adjectives (descriptive words) that best fit this person. (For instance, adjectives for a portrait of Alexander the Great might include fearless, aggressive, and arrogant.) Direct the groups to create a new portrait with their bodies that exemplifies the three adjectives they chose. For each new portrait, one person will be the model and the other students will be the artists. The artists will decide how the model must look and pose (body placement and facial expression). Groups may use costume items to help communicate the adjectives they have chosen. Once they have determined the model’s appearance, each group will share their creation and explain their choices to the rest of the class.
Possible Variations: Have the new portrait come to life. Interview the new portrait after it has come to life. When the groups share their portraits, have the rest of the class guess what adjectives they were working with.

Notes/Sidecoaching: “When choosing adjectives, look closely at details in the portrait.”
“Artists, use care when placing the model. Treat them with respect.”

Debrief: How would you describe the person in this new portrait? What do the costume or gestural details tell you? In what other situations are judgments made based on images?

Integration Ideas: Descriptive language, visual literacy, character development, historical/literary figures

PAIR Partner Handbook | Drama for Schools Handbook | Image Work/Tableau

Strategy: Ensemble Squash

Purpose: ensemble skills, nonverbal communication, problem solving, visual thinking, conceptual thinking/processing of concepts or ideas

Materials/Playing Space: open space with room for small groups of 5-6 in each group to have their own space

Description: Split class into small groups–about 5 or 6 students in each group. The game facilitator will name an object. This could be anything, big or small: pepperoni pizza, water fountain, paperclip, cruise ship, etc. WITHOUT TALKING, each small group will have to create the shape of the object given by the facilitator. The entire group must make the shape of the object together, i.e. one pepperoni pizza using 5 students, and not 5 individual pizzas.

In addition, the facilitator will only give students 10 seconds (counting down) to create the object. A facilitator may choose to lengthen or shorten this countdown based on the class and the degree of difficulty for each object.

Notes/Sidecoaching:
Start with objects that are static, and then add objects which might move.
Encourage groups to share leadership and take ideas from each other.
There is not a “wrong” way to play this game–not every group’s answer is going to look exactly the same.

Integration Ideas:
Ask students to create systems or cycles: circulatory system, water cycle, parts of a plant cell, a chain of DNA, etc.

Reinforce scenes from a text by asking students to show a moment from the beginning/middle/end of a story.

Incorporate moments in history, historical figures, or objects from other cultures.