Illustration of a boy shown in three positions--going from standing to kneeling

DROP AND GIVE
ME TEN

CURTAINS UP ACTING STUDIO

 
 

DROP AND GIVE ME TEN
A Fast Paced Drama Warm-up for Kids

Energize your group with this physical warm-up that challenges students to maintain body control as they move from standing to lying on the floor and back on increasingly shorter counts.

Download Printable Instructions

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Step-by-Step Instructions

  • Tell the students you are going to count from one to ten, and they have exactly that amount of time to go from a standing position to a position lying flat on the ground.  They must use the full amount of time, and can’t get to their final position before ten. Explain they will need to isolate parts of their body in order to slowly lower to the floor during the count.  

  • Once the group has gone from standing to lying down on the count of ten, tell them to stand back up slowly as you count backwards from ten to one. Again–they must use the full count.  

  • Next, tell them they have from one to nine to lie down, and from nine to one to stand–always stressing they must use the full and exact count. 

  • Repeat the pattern, using one less number for each round, until the students have only the count of “One!” to go from standing to lying down, and from lying down to standing.

  • Students love figuring out how to make their bodies go slowly at the beginning of the exercise, and then faster and faster as the exercise progresses.  

 
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© 2023, Friends of the Groom Theater Company

 
 

Curtains Up Curriculum by Friends of the Groom Theater Co. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Curtains Up is a training program designed for young actors sponsored by Friends of the Groom Theater Company.
It is available to the general public for free under the terms of the Creative Commons License above.