The Room: more activities and ideas for workshops!

This day was a laughter session, we had so much fun! Crazy! 20 people were today in a group and it made it so diverse and full of interest to learn, explore and discover new things:) Newbridge Women community group joined us that day, so we planned as a session as a once-off but with an idea of inviting women to join after and stay for the whole programme. Here is what we came up with:

We made a names game as during the first session ( for those who were there it’s great also from time to time to come back to what they ‘know’, they feel cool about it).

Now they walk around the room and say hello to people, shaking their hands. One hand has to always be in contact! Makes you think about others and come to their rescue if needed.

Laughter battle. We learned this just a day before the workshop on one course and immediately decided to use it. Group is divided into two: team of puppies and team of kittens. The stand in a line, facing each other with a short distance. Tell the puppies that they are very serious and don’t know how to smile, w kittens are the happiest creatures on earth that day. Kittens job is to make puppies laugh and puppies have to resist. Same vice versa. Only 3 people in total resisted the battle! There was much laughter altogether afterwards though;)

Then, in a circle, they change places and say names of people they go towards to. Good to make people try to remember new names and use them. This time we add a layer to this and participants have to say a name of someone, start walking towards them and the person who was named has to say somebody else's name before person walking towards them arrives. We add a ‘zomby’ way of walking here so that there is more ‘pressure’ about having to find someone fast, wait and not go before that. There are more layers in this game but just with these two we laughed so much! It broke the ice completely and we decided to go for something even more ‘ice-breaking’, theatrical and of course- fun!

Love declaration: a group is sitting in a circle. Facilitator tells that now that we know each other ‘a little bit’, it’s time for a declaration; comes up to one of the people in the room (ideally targeting someone who will follow the rules of this first example) and tells them about their love. The script is that the person says ‘ooops, I am not in love with you, I am in love with ...and says a name of someone else in the room. More things can be and should be done but this are the main instructions of the game. Now, two people who are sitting next to the person who rejected the love and two people next to the one who’s name was now pronounced will have to stand up and switch places. But attention! There was also a facilitator who din’t have a chair, so this will happen fast and someone new this time will be without a chair and will have to declare their love to someone. You might be imaging already chaos that might happen and there will for sure be a few people who will always forget to stand up or won’t event notice what’s happening, so it’s great fun, drama is in game and people get awaken 100% because very few want to stay in the middle!

Here we made a break, people said they felt like having exercised and needed to drink water and use the loo: remember about these kind of things: basic needs first!

Granny and a ring: this was the last game of the session. All participants stand along one wall. On the opposite side is a facilitator and they invite someone to volunteer. The person who volunteers is a ‘granny’ who is in love with her ring. She stands with her back towards the group and the ring is behind her back. The group has to get the ring. Granny can ‘wake up’ and turn around up to three times only and each time she turns, is someone form the group is moving, they all have to go back and start from the beginning. Is the group gets the ring they have to walk backwards and pass the ring among each other so that granny doesn’t have an opportunity to guess where the ring is. Play this several time with different ‘grannies’:). Now, divide the group into two teams and say that they were stuck in granny’s home and that have to pretend being some furniture so that she doesn’t notice them. The group has to ‘become this furniture and they have only 30 seconds to decide. First it can be a living room, then kitchen and then bathroom. This is already an introduction to images and theatre which we will use next sessions!:)

P.S: Dring the time of one of the workshops Kildare Youth Theatre presented Hamlet by Shakespeare. We thought it was a great moment to go to the theatre and enjoy the show with all group. Newbridge women group joined us and we were quite a big gang this time again enjoying the show at Riverbank.