Mindprint Toolbox

Search Results

Please wait...

Improvisation Activities

Tags

^21st Century Skills ^Extra-curricular/At-Home All Ages Strategy

Skills

Flexible Thinking Expressive Language Listening Comprehension Social Awareness

Improvisation Activities

If your child needs to strengthen their communication or creative thinking skills

How To Apply It!

  1. Improvisation games teach children to think on their feet, listen and respond to others, and shift gears in an adaptive manner.
  2. - One-word story: The game starts out with a word and each player, either in order or at random, adds a word to build a story. Players follow along and offer words that keep the story going. This game can also be played on a sentence level, where each player adds a sentence to form a story.
  3. - Conducted story: This is a group story activity in which one player is designated as the conductor. The conductor points to the first person who will begin telling a story. When the conductor decides, he or she will then point to the next player who picks up right where the previous player left off, even if it is mid-sentence or mid-word.
  4. - Yes, Let's: One player in the group starts by saying “Let’s ____” and then an activity (i.e. “Let’s climb a mountain.”, “Let’s go surfing” etc.) Then all the other players support the action by jumping in and saying “Yes! Let’s!” Everyone then proceeds to do the activity together until another person in the group makes a new “Let’s [activity]!” Everyone else says “Yes! Let’s!” and proceeds to do the activity. The pattern continues until everyone has had a chance to suggest an activity. Encourage the players to make physically active suggestions.
  5. There are many more improv activities online.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Improv games exercise a host of important communication, social-emotional, reasoning, and executive function skills. When students engage in improv activities in a safe environment, they are collaborating, honing attention and communication skills, learning to pick up on social cues, learning to give up some control and building self-confidence. Students also learn that there is no single correct answer, and not every response will be fantastic but can still be good enough.