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Connecting Drama and Science – Body Objects: With Setting, Environments and Details

Connecting Drama and Science - Body Objects: With Setting, Environments, and Details

Discover the striking parallels between establishing setting in drama and studying environments from a scientific standpoint. This lesson, designed for grades 3-8, goes in-depth on both topics, challenging students to be detail-oriented and collaborative in their thinking. Students can hone their transformation and body object skills, while integrating science and language arts by identifying the details of different environments and describing them.  

NOTE: Connecting Drama and Science - Body Objects is part of our unique library of integrated lessons. These specialized lessons simultaneously teach concepts and skills related to drama and the other subject(s) targeted in the lesson. In addition, these lessons are designed to meet National Standards for Drama and for the integrated subject(s), so you can reach learning goals across multiple disciplines.

Civil War Drama Lesson

Civil War Drama Lesson

Drama is a great way to engage students with historical events by encouraging them to think deeply about point of view. In this lesson, designed for grades 4-8, students will practice concentration, collaboration, and transformation while using Body Objects to communicate different settings. This lesson encourages students to think about point of view and sectionalism, deepening their understanding of the events and forces that led to the Civil War.

NOTE: Civil War Drama is part of our unique library of integrated lessons. These specialized lessons simultaneously teach concepts and skills related to drama and the other subject(s) targeted in the lesson. In addition, these lessons are designed to meet National Standards for Drama and for the integrated subject(s), so you can reach learning goals across multiple disciplines.

Body Objects: Acting The Dreamer Story

Body Objects: Acting The Dreamer Story

How do we get students excited about the details and setting in a story? Dive into the vivid world of The Dreamer, adapted from One Thousand and One Nights by Karen L. Erickson. In this lesson, students in grades 4-12 can practice collaboration, cooperation, and transformation skills by using body objects to act out the different settings of this tale.

Body Objects: Acting The Dreamer Story Sixth Grade Journal

To maximize student achievement, download this drama journal for students to use as reflection or formative assessment. A drama journal allows participants to reflect on their learning and artistic growth (metacognition). It also allows you, the teacher, to see how students are using the drama vocabulary, thinking about big ideas, and perceiving their own strengths and weaknesses. 

Creating Mood

Creating Mood Lesson

Creating mood effectively is one of the most important lessons young actors can learn. In this lesson, students can practice using their imagination and concentration skills to create mood for a variety of different scenarios. This lesson gives students a chance to hone their ability to imagine their given circumstances, while using their voice, body, and mind to communicate what they are imagining.

Sixth Grade Drama Journal: Creating Mood

To maximize student achievement, download this drama journal for students to use as reflection or formative assessment.  A drama journal allows participants to reflect on their learning and artistic growth (metacognition). It also allows you, the teacher, to see how students are using the drama vocabulary, thinking about big ideas, and perceiving their own strengths and weaknesses.

Plot Boosters

Plot Boosters

Use this list of plot boosters to develop original stories for your drama work! These ideas can support the plot by moving the story along, giving the reader/viewer new information, showing character changes, foreshadowing, providing irony, creating cause and effect, and supporting the message and/or theme of the story. 

Open Scenes Lesson

Open Scenes Lesson

Challenge students to read between the lines and play distinctive characters in these open-ended scenes. With dialogue that purposefully leaves details up to the imagination, this lesson can be used with students to work on collaboration, imitation, transformation, and planning and practicing skills. You may also integrate Language Arts by challenging students to use inferences to draw conclusions about what is going on in each scene.  

Liars Club Lesson

Liars Club Lesson

How do actors bring truth to every performance they do, even if it’s outside their own experience? In this lesson, students in grades 6-8 will have the chance to practice telling each other true stories that happened in their lives, and then telling each other’s stories to the class as if they were their own.  This lesson challenges students to practice great listening, collaboration, concentration, and imitation skills, preparing them to play more realistic characters and circumstances.

Liars Club Journal Grade 6 

To maximize student achievement, download this drama journal for students to use as reflection or formative assessment. For this poem, we have created a corresponding journal page for your students. A drama journal allows participants to reflect on their learning and artistic growth (metacognition). It also allows you, the teacher, to see how students are using the drama vocabulary, thinking about big ideas, and perceiving their own strengths and weaknesses. 

Motivation II Activity

Motivation II Activity

Building on the Motivation I activity, participants expand their imagination skills beyond the chair.  Participants work in pairs to decide on motivations for simple physical actions.  We provide ideas for these actions or you can invent your own to match the objectives of the class. This activity is the second activity in a Motivation series that successively builds skills. No props are needed.

My Room Lesson

My Room Lesson: Creating Setting

Objective: students use their imagination to create a setting for drama.

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Students will have the chance to describe their bedroom, messy or neat, in partners. Remind them about the Ask, Don’t Tell rule from our Introductory Lessons as the negotiation strategy to use when making a decision. Students will use their body objects skills to create items in the room and demonstrate the story elements (dramatic & literary) as the “parent” encounters neat vs messy rooms (part of the fourth grade objectives). As an alternative, you can use the book The Plant that Ate the Dirty Socks by Nancy McArthur with this lesson instead of "my room."  This lesson is part of our recommended sequence in the Fourth Grade Curriculum.

Fourth Grade Drama Journal: My Room

To maximize student achievement, download this drama journal for students to use as reflection or formative assessment. For each lesson in the curriculum, we have created a corresponding journal page for your students. A drama journal allows participants to reflect on their learning and artistic growth (metacognition). It also allows you, the teacher, to see how students are using the drama vocabulary, thinking about big ideas, and perceiving their own strengths and weaknesses. If you use the journal for assessment and would like more assessment tools, visit our Fourth Grade Curriculum.