Customer Reviews

Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a teacher of drama to many low-income, urban, and "difficult" adolescents, this is the book that I find most useful, alive, and inspiring! Simply wonderful for anyone trying to bring the best out of young actors!

This book is great to use in the classroom. It is full of ideas and the students will love it. They get to play and act out things while learning, it's a great change of pace. Spolin's ideas and thoughts are very helpful. Get this book, your students will thank you!

I teach sixth grade math, and have a group of students for an exploratory class. We talk about current events, esteem building, community building, fun non-academic skills with an emphasis on social awareness. I have been using this book for most of the year so far, and my students look forward to it,a nd ask for it. I don't have a background in theater, but this book has several premade units that have a focus on different skills. The one I am just completing focuses on community building for the group and concentration and focus for the individual. I find it easy to use, and I like the skills that it is building and reinforcing in my students. If you don't want to do a whole unit, the individual exercises and warm-ups can be set up and completed in 5-10 minutes. Great,and quick!
I strongly recommend this for any classroom!

I teach drama/theater in a low income public school. I bought the book because my school has very few resources and I thought this might be useful. As it turned out the book was hardly used during my first year teaching. My biggest problem with this book is that it is not very user friendly for a teacher who just wants to add some fun to a class but not a complex game. In other words the book needs to make the games simpler so the kids can pick them up faster and have more fun. This might not be problem for teachers in high school as your students might be more mature and able to handle more complex games. But for middle school teachers tread lightly. Also if you have a bunch of behavior problems in your class then forgot about it. In my experience I found the worse the behavior the better they were at spoiling fun classroom games. Be warned.

This was on a list of suggested reading from a class I attended with Second City. I bought it hoping to use some of the ideas for my middle schoolers. There are many ideas in the book for younger kids, like songs. There are some good ideas that can be adapted into a middle school room.

Spolin is a well-recognized authority on matters of this sort -- improvisation and classroom games. One of my theater professors uses this as the textbook for her class on using theater in the classroom. It's popular enough to be one of the safer buys if you're looking for this sort of thing.

EXCELLENT!! Inspiring. Well Organized. So many great ideas for the new or seasoned acting teacher.

I am a fifth grade teacher in Chandler, AZ. I am also an actor as well. I am a big believer in the arts in the classroom. I purchesed this book to use with my collection of improvisation games I collected throughout the years. WOW I was blown away at the detail the book goes into for each of the games. It gives the teacher great advice as to side coach your student's performances. It also includes some great team building exercises. This is a great collection to add to any classroom. Teacher's will love it!

If you are a novice theater teacher or a general ed teacher who wants to bring fun back to the learning process, this book contains a wealth of ideas!

An excellent resource for teaching artists and teachers. Opens up a whole new level of learning.