Saturday, 14 April 2018

Drama: Zip Zap Bop

The first activity we will be talking about is Zip Zap Bop. The activity is all about the elements of focus and energy as students pass on their energy to each other in a circle. The main objective is focusing on what the student says and gives you, whether it is a Zip, Zap, or Bop and passing something else on to another student. You can begin the game by getting your students in a circle and having them imagine that you have a bolt of energy in your hands and that you are going to pass that energy to someone else using a strong movement, being sure to make eye contact so they know they are passing it to you. Start by using Zip which can only pass the energy to someone beside you. After your students are used to using Zip you can introduce Zap. Zap can pass the energy to someone across from you, then give them a chance to use Zip and Zap to pass the energy around as fast as they can. If you think your students are up for it you can introduce Bop. Bop negates or blocks any Zip or Zap so they have to pass it to someone else. A good rule we used for Bop is that a student can only be Bopped twice and then the energy has to be passed. You can view a video example of us playing Zip Zap Bop below.


I think that this game is a great introduction to drama, an amazing warm up game, and a good way to get students to start thinking about energy and focus. The activity becomes more complicated as you add Zap and Bop to it, so the difficulty of the focus required is changeable. To make it easier you could just focus on Zip, or to make it harder you have to use all three, or you cant use the last one that was just used. It would be a great activity for a new class to let unfamiliar students get to know each other and have fun with each other.

When it comes to accommodations for this activity I have already mentioned one which would be to remove some of the elements of the game to make it easier to follow. That being said there are other ones such as making clear verbal and non-verbal signals during the game, providing instructions in oral and written forms, and just allow the game to keep flowing despite errors.


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