Introduction

Warm-up exercises are useful for preparing to learn and are an essential part of drama pedagogy. Finding activities that work without physical presence, can however, be challenging. Many of these warm-up activities are taken from improvisational theater where the intent is to immerse oneself in the moment, to not think ahead nor to think about the opinions of others, but rather to act wholly in the present. One implicit goal of such warm-ups is to become at ease with light-hearted failure. For young people in particular, accepting failure is not always easy, since, for many, this requires them leaving their comfort zone. However, as Sambanis and Walter (2019) suggest, shared laughter - not at the individual, but rather through enjoying the mistake and hence with the individual - makes it possible to accept mistakes as being normal. This means that leaving the comfort zone and daring to do something new can be a rewarding experience and worth taking the risk.

Ten Pandemic Proof Warm-ups

This is a Gift for ... has an appropriate name because people take turns giving and receiving imaginary objects using their computer camera. A favorite exchange was when Antonio gave away his imaginary tie because it didn't match his imaginary handkerchief.

This vocal and body warm-up called Waking Up was uploaded by Stephanie. This warm-up is especially good for students who need a break to refresh from sitting all day. Try noticing: How you are feeling now? How do you feel after the warm up?

Sitting:

• Pull shoulders up, hold, let fall (relax) (3x)
• Turn shoulders slowly to front (5x) To back (5x)
• Turn head slowly to left (5x) To right (5x)
• Turn head up and down (5x)
• Head circle to right (3x) To left (3x)
• Grab your head with left hand (opposite arm is straight). (5 sec) With right hand (“) (5 sec)
• Touch and massage face; cheeks, nose, lips, eyes, eyebrows, ears (10 sec)
• Turn tongue inside of mouth
• Yawn
• Inhale, release with ‘ts’ sound (3x) -> short, then long in the end (2x)
• Brr sound up and down

Standing Up:

• Get up and shake your body
• Circle hips slowly to the right (5x) To the left (5x)
• Stretch legs by letting the upper body fall and touch feet, legs straight ?
• One leg straight the other one bend (3 x each)
• Slowly roll up
• Stretch arms above the head (5 sec)
• Stretch to the right (once) to the left (once)
• Arms to the front (stretch and round your back)
• Arms to the side and circle to the front (8 x) To the back (8 x)
• Make fists and hit the body (gently) all over
• Big bear hug (3 x)

This physical warm-up helps you to Center Yourself and Wake Up and was uploaded by Sophie.

Start with your feet: move your upper body in circles, to the right and to the left, to the front and to the back to feel where the sole of your feet touches the ground. Move up your toes and repeat. Put your toes down, now you should feel more grounded. This is a great way to stand solid and confident in case you are nervous.

Now work your way up: move your hips, then your shoulders and your arms to wake up your body. Finally, shake every body part. This is a good way to connect yourself with your body before speaking or singing or in general to become more awake.

Go Fetch is a great game Josi introduced to play with a new class in person or in online sessions. You can check if everyone has what they need for the lesson and practice vocabulary like colours, clothes or classroom supplies etc.

One person leads the game by asking others to Go Fetch a spoon, for example. Everyone now has to go get a spoon and hold it up, either in person or in front of their camera, until everybody is holding a spoon. You can also allow children to lead the game as well.

Fun things to go fetch:

• something living (parents, pets, plants)
• something from outside (flowers, grass)
• something to snack/drink
• something fun
• something fluffy

Uploaded by Caroline, Animal Kingdom combines both gestures and rhythm and allows participants to use their imagination and creativity. Each participant thinks of an animal and a gesture that symbolizes the chosen animal. First, one after another, every participant introduces an animal and the fitting gesture, and then the game starts. The first person is does his gestures, claps two times to create a certain rhythm, and then does the animal's gesture of the next player and so on. This way every participant has to focus on each animal and its representation. However, this game is versatile and can also be played when introducing new topics and vocabulary.

Counting Challenge came to us by way of Johannes. The goal is to wake up non-verbal communication. The challenge is that everyone together counts upwards from 1, but only one person is allowed to speak at the same time. Therefore you had to observe the other students carefully. When two students talk at the same time, everyone had to start over from 1. (This game can also be made more difficult if it is played with eyes closed.)

After the first cooperative assignment we felt it was necessary to instill a sense of challenge and competition in the group, which can also be useful for waking up mentally. Therefore we played a game of skribbl. Skribbl is an online game which can be accessed via the website skribbl.io. In each round of the game, one player has to draw a word, that he chose before the round and the other players have to guess which word is drawn. The player that guesses the fastest is rewarded with more points. We found that these two mental warm ups offer a welcome alternative to the more common physical warmups.

Gabriela's warm-up is called Let's Make a Picture! The idea of this game is to make a picture with our bodies. Every person will be an object, an animal or anything that comes up to their minds. One person could start saying, for example, " I am a tree.” and shapes her/his body like a tree. The next person says: " I am a bench under the tree." and shapes her/his body accordingly. The third person could say "I am a dog peeing on the tree." and so on and so forth. The idea is that everybody is something in the picture. We do not agree on the picture at the beginning, we improvise it according to what people are saying at the moment. This is great when you have a big group (between 8 and 12 students). If the group is bigger, you can split it in two. This idea works best with people in a classroom, but if the class is held online, it works perfectly, too!

Essential when working from home in front of a computer screen, here is a set of Fun Physical Exercises for Better Posture. (YouTube link tested 22 July 2021)

The final game is an adaptation of Name with Action, Adjective and Alliteration from the book playing CLIL (pp. 90-91) and works in the following way:

Every member of the group thinks of their first name, and then comes up with an adjective that alliterates with it (‘alliterate’ meaning to start with the same letter or sound, e.g. Francesca - funny). The person who’s turn it is then acts out their adjective and everyone else has to guess what it is, knowing that it starts with the same sound as the person’s name. The student who guesses the correct adjective is up next. If that person has already acted out their adjective, they can pick somebody else who then continues until everybody had their turn.

If time allows, students could later write a definition of their adjective on the blackboard.