*Turn an assignment into a play
If a student has to give a speech, turn that speech into a play. Dress up in costumes, add props, and turn your living room into a stage. You can even add characters to the speech, just for rehearsals, so your child has another character to interact with while talking.
When kids play pretend, they are more engaged. Combine their imaginations with their homework to make it come alive.
*Change the scenery
Liven up homework by changing the scenery. If it is a nice day, go outside to read. Learn addition by collecting rocks. Learn percentages by finding a flower and calculating blooming buds vs. ones that have not bloomed.
Drama uses scenery to tell a story. Change your scenery to make homework more fun.
*Dress up
A history lesson about space? Dress up like astronauts! Add costumes to your homework, and your imagination can run wild. Costumes can add another level of engagement to make homework time much more fun.
We have had many parents share great stories about including drama in their kid’s homework routine. One family had kids who loved going to the arcade. The father was having a difficult time getting his children to focus on their homework, specifically math. The kids just wanted to go play all the fun games at the arcade and didn’t want to work on addition and subtraction. He realized that he could combine the two. He was enrolled in our drama classes for kids, and our director, Mr. Miles, worked with a dad to come up with an arcade-meets-math homework plan.
The kids were surprised on a Saturday afternoon by their Dad getting them into the minivan and taking them to the arcade. On the drive there, he handed them their worksheets for math that they had to do at the arcade. Before they were allowed to play their first video game, they first had to add up the top five high scores that were listed on the video game’s front screen. For their second video game, they had to divide the second-highest score by the fourth high score. For his older child, who was in a more advanced math class, she had to work out the square roots of those same scores.
The kids found this adventure very fun. They ended up racing one another to see who could finish the math problems first. They ended up having a great Saturday afternoon of video game fun and finished all of their homework in time. The Dad continues developing lesson plans like this over the years to great success with his children. One of his kids ended up becoming an engineer because of her love of math.
Another example of a family incorporating drama into their homework was a family of four with some very dramatic kids. The kids had to do speeches in their English classes and did not feel very motivated. All of the kids were in our summer camps near Overland Park and had no problem being on stage. The acting was fun for them; homework was not as exciting.
The mom created a great plan to rehearse their speeches. She turned the living room into a stage area. She hung red curtains from the ceiling to create a stage opening. She rearranged all of the lamps in the living room, so they pointed at the performance area. She went to the local party store and got lots of silver streamers to add to the theatricality.
The kids were then instructed to pick out their favorite Halloween costumes from the year before and put them on to give their speeches. The kids excitedly got dressed and practiced their speeches in earnest. They ended up performing their speeches over and over for several hours. Happy to say every child got an A on that assignment.
These are just more examples of how you can incorporate drama to make your kid’s homework more exciting. The principles of acting can apply to school very easily. At our acting classes near you, we work on these principles every class period. Improving public speaking and self-confidence has always been our goal. We find it extra special when students can take the lessons they learned from our drama classes near you and apply them to their schoolwork. Helping young people improve their lives through drama has always been our goal.
If you’re looking for more ways to use drama in your child’s daily life, come to our summer camps near Overland Park, KS. At Theatre of the Imagination summer camps, they will study many aspects of theater. They will take classes in improvisation, creating great jokes and funny characters along the way. They will take part in acting classes, working on scenes and full-length plays. They will grow as a performer and find new ways to incorporate the tools of theater into their lives. With our drama classes near you, there is no end to where drama can lead them.
What makes our acting classes for kids unique is our approach. We make sure our classes are very fun and inclusive. Our summer camps near Overland Park, KS, are built around the idea that everybody gets an equal size part. There are no auditions in our drama classes near you. The plays are written around the students so that everyone who comes to our summer camps near Overland Park, KS, is guaranteed a great part in a fun play.
Start taking one of our drama classes near you. Our professional instructors will help your child find their passion for acting. Our Overland Park summer camps are a fun and easy way to get the drama out of the house! Go ahead and enroll in one of our acting classes for kids today.