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How Perform helps

Under the Sea

It’s the start of our autumn term. It’s always so nice to see the children after the long holiday and to meet lots of new children joining us for the first time. Our theme for the 4-7s this term is Under the Sea and we will be going on an adventure to rescue the lost Pearl of the Ocean.

The children will go home with their Under the Sea Poster and each week, as part of our curriculum, they’ll get a sticker which they can take home and fill up the poster. By the end of term, they’ll have a lovely poster full of their achievements. 

Breath Control 

We introduce the focus of the class through an improvisation in which Dolly Dolphin teaches PF how to breathe under water. This leads us on to exploring breathing techniques and how they can help create confident, relaxed and healthy voices. 

We explore why it’s important to think about your breathing when you act and sing or speak out loud. And how if we learn this from an early age, it can become second nature.
 

 

 

Meeting Someone New

We encouraged the children to choose a partner they’d never chosen before, sit next to someone they’d never sat next to before, and at every opportunity work with a new person. This could be a brand new Perform member or someone they’d just never spent any time with. This sort of activity is not only a lovely way to make new friends, but a great way to encourage the children to be confident when meeting new people. This is especially important at this point in the term where new children are starting.

Telling A Joke

In this class we learn how to tell your joke to an audience with a loud voice and eye contact.

In our improvisation, we meet Smelly Fish Jelly Fish who is a famous under water comedian. He gives us some joke telling tips. We practice joke telling on the 'solo speaking spot' and we learn how to emphasise the punch line. 

 

Standing up for ourselves

We use improvisation as the starting point to this topic. In this class, the Shark is trying to make PF and Dolly Dolphin do something against their will. PF stands up to him and he backs down. 

We talk about why it’s important that we stand up for ourselves in life, and what to do if someone is persuading us to do something we’re uncomfortable with.

We also look at how to stand up for someone else too. 

Starting something new

In this class we us the Under the Sea story to lead us into our weekly focus. Dolly Dolphin has decided that she needs to be brave and try something new which is to help PF find The Pearl of the Ocean. It’s scary and she’s never done it before, but PF persuades her to have a go and try. We explore why it’s important to have a go at new things in life, even though you may think you can’t do it at first.  

We choose something new we want to do and think about all the positive reasons why we should give it a go.

 

Together Power

In this class we explore what it means to be a team. Together, we think of examples of things that we could not do all on our own. We play a game called 10 second objects where we give the children a shape to make and they have to create it together in 10 seconds. 

We discuss how everyone has an important part to play and how powerful we can be when working together. 

 

Celebrating our differences

We focus, this week, on how boring it would be if we were all the same.

We meet Septimus the Octopus who only has 7 legs and doesn’t like being ‘different’ from his siblings. We discuss why he feels like this and persuade him that being different is cool. 

We go on to celebrate our own differences and how great they make us.

 

Vocal Projection

This week, we focus on why it’s so important to know how to project your voice.

We discuss what situations you might need to project your voice in, how to project your voice, and how to keep your voice healthy. 

We do lots of vocal exercises and play a game where we have to use a quiet voice, a normal voice and projected voice. 

Vocal expression 

We explore what vocal expression is and why its important. 

We play a game called ‘Boring’ where we tell a story in a monontone way and then tell it again with expression. We discuss the difference and how much better the story is with expression. 

Empathy

We learn what empathy is and explore what its like to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

We discuss feelings and how different people might feel differently about the same situation. We also talk about what a life would be like if people didn’t have empathy. 

Trust

In this class, we talk about what trust is and who we trust. We discuss why trusting someone is so important.  

We play a trust game where we are in partners and one partner closes their eyes and leads the other one around the room. It's a great exercise as the children have to have complete trust in each other.

Cinderella Rocks

We are delighted to welcome the children back after the summer holidays and we are all raring to go to start working on this term’s show - Cinderella Rocks. 

In our version, Cinderella isn’t looking for a Prince but a record deal. It’s a modern-day twist on the classic story. 

We give the children an introduction to the theme and start to learn the dance routines and one of the songs. We also play lots of fun games to help us start to work together as a group and to welcome new children to the class. 

 

 

Breath Control

In this class we explore why it’s important to think about your breathing when you act and sing or speak out loud. And how to use breathing techniques to make you feel calm if you feel anxious or scared.

We compare our singing voices when we sing a phrase with no breath control as opposed to breath control and see how much better it sounds with a small breath. We also work on our calm breathing and discuss situations where we feel stressed and how this can help. 

Meeting Someone New

In this class, we discuss how it can sometimes feel strange and a bit scary if you go somewhere and you don’t know anyone. We looked at ways you can recognise if someone is new and why it’s important to make them feel welcome. 

We do lots of role-play and play a speed detective game where we have to meet new people and in 1 minute find out 3 things about them. 

Negotiation

In this class we learn ways to settle differences without arguing and spend sometime practising negotiating through role-play. 

We look at different ways to negotiate fairly and try to organise a good outcome for everyone.
 

Standing up for ourselves

In this class we explore why it’s important that we stand up for ourselves in life, and what to do if someone is persuading us to do something we’re uncomfortable with.

 

We play the 'Just Say No Game' where someone tries to make us do something against our will and we rehearse saying 'no' to them. 

We also look at how to stand up for someone else too. 

Starting something new 

In this class we do a role-play where one of us is a friend suggesting a new activity to another friend. The first time round, we are negative and list the reasons why we can’t do something but the second time, we are really positive and give lots of reasons for giving it a go.

We discuss how you can’t know if you don’t like something unless you’ve tried it first and explore why it’s important to have a go at new things in life, even though you may think you can’t do it. 

 

Memorise Week

This week, we look at what it means to memorise something and how quickly we can do it. We discuss how your brain gets better at memorising the more you stretch it to do so.

We do a Tongue Twister challenge where each group learn a tricky tongue twister in 5 minutes and we look at techniques actors use for learning lines.

 

 

Celebrating differences

This week we look at how boring it would be if we were all the same.

We play a game called Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover where we explore how we shouldn’t judge people by our first impressions of them. 

We go on to celebrate our own differences and how great they make us.

Vocal Projection

This week, we focus on why it’s so important to know how to project your voice.

We establish why actors have to project their voices on stage, how they do this healthily, and what exercises we can work on to achieve this too. We experiment with our show in a line delivery exercise by acting out some lines in a projected voice and some in a non-projected. 

Vocal expression

We explore what vocal expression is and why its important. 

We do an exercise that explores different emotions. We try to guess how the person is feeling by taking away their words and purely having expression in their voice.

We go on to pay particular care to performing our show lines in an expressive way. 

Empathy

We learn what empathy is and explore what its like to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

We discuss feelings and how different people might feel differently about the same situation. We also talk about what a life would be like if people didn’t have empathy. 

We explore how important it is for actors to have a strong sense of empathy and how this can help us perform our character roles. 

Trust

In this class, we talk about what trust is and who we trust. We explore why trusting someone is so important.  

We also look at this in relation to putting on a show. We discuss we have to trust our fellow actors to know their lines, come in with their cues and follow stage directions. 

Oz Rebooted

It’s the start of the autumn term and our new Perform X theme is Oz Rebooted.

We'll be doing a modern re-telling of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz set in a futuristic internet world. 

Dorothy is blown by a freak electrical storm to the dazzling virtual reality world of Oz where she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and finally the Wizard before she manages to teleport back home. As they race along the Yellow Super-highway to the Emerald Cybercity, Dorothy and her friends learn new moves and discover ways to survive and thrive in an unfamiliar world.

 

Aerobic Exercise

On of the great things about Perform X is that it provides a great way for the children to keep fit. 

In this class we learn about the meaning of the word 'aerobic'. We discuss the health benfits of aerobic excercise and discuss when we work aerobically in class.  

 

Anaerobic exercise

In this class we explore the differences between aerobic and anaerobic exercise and really help the children understand what it means when we talk about  anaerobic activity.

The children enjoy discussing what activities they do in Perform X and their day-to-day lives that count as anaerobic excercise. 

 

Hip Hop Moves

In this class we isolate four different hip hop moves from our routine and break them down.

The children also have a go at creating their own special Perform X choreography. They split into groups and create their own new move and give it a name. 

 

Sense of space 

In this class we focus on spatial awareness. We experiment with not being in the right space or being too close to someone. We talk about how this affects us in real life and how it makes us feel.

We also discuss the importance of knowing your sense of space when performing. 

Creating a character

In this class we focus on character. We experiment with the characters in Oz Rebooted and compare them with the classic characters from The Wizard of Oz. We look at how they've been updated and changed for our performance and do several exercises that show how to create and develop a character’s physicality. 

Memorise choreography week

This week, we look at why you have to memorise your choreography to be able to perform brilliantly. We learn about muscle memory and do a choreography memory challenge to see how much we can remember without our teacher’s help.

 

Telling a story through dance

We take away words this week and just focus on telling a story through movement only. We experiment with communicating with no language accept for body language and choreography.

Looking at emotions, we focus on how our body changes according to how we're feeling and establish what confident body language looks like. 

Vocal Projection

This week, we learn why it’s so important to know how to project your voice.

We discuss what situations you might need to project your voice in, how to project your voice, and how to keep your voice healthy

We work on our Oz Rebooted piece and focus on the rap section and how to make sure that it’s projected to our audience. 

Concentration

This week, we look at what concentration is and the importance of being able to focus on tasks that we’re given.

We talk about when we might be less focused, maybe when we’re tired, and play lots of exercises to help the children boost their concentration.

Relaxation

In this class we talk about what situations might make us feel stressed and how it’s important to know how to relax ourselves. 

We play some calming relaxation exercises. It's a nice, and important contrast, to the usual high energy nature of the classes. 

Trust 

In this class, we talk about what trust is and who we trust. We explore why trusting someone is so important.  

We play a lovely physical exercise game called Trust Circle, which is great for developing both teamwork and concentration. 

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