10 Minute Warm-up

My 10 minute warm-up consists of vocal and physical warm-ups.

3-4 Minutes

The vocal warm-up I will be doing is an articulation workout. Firstly, the students are to move their facial features around so they are nice and relaxed. This helps to get the face muscles working. Then, take the tip of your tongue out and draw small circles 5 times to the left and 5 times to the right. Now open your mouth wider and draw big circles with your tongue.

The next thing you need to do is get the tip of the tongue working so you start of by making D sounds (duh-duh-duh-duh-duh). Make sure to use the range of sound when you’re making the sounds. Now do it with the letter T (tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh). To make it more difficult try rolling your R’s (Rrrrrrrrrrr) – for those who are unable to do this at least give it your best shot.

For the sides of the tongue, start by doing the sound Ay-ay-ay-ay-a. Try this without moving your chin. Now using your face say Yo-ya-yo-ya-yo-ya

Lastly, for the back of the tongue, use 2 fingers to open your mouth (like a gun) and put the tip of your tongue behind the bottom teeth, take the fingers out and keep the space and start making the sound of G (Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga). Try this without moving your chin. Now try it with the letter K (Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka).

Try these tongue twisters after doing this exercise:

Easy: Black background, brown background.

Hard: The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.                                                         (According to the Guiness Book of World Records, this is the World's Hardest Tongue Twister)

6-7 Minutes

The game I will be teaching the class is called The Martha Game and it works best with a large group of 8 or more. The class will be divided into two groups. One of the groups will be the audience and the other will stand in a line alongside a wall.

One person runs into the space, forms their body into a statue and announces what they are for example, "I'm a tree." Instantly the next person runs on and forms something else in the same picture.  "I'm a bench under the tree."

The next person then runs and adds to the picture.  "I'm a bum on the bench.” or

"I'm a dog peeing on the tree." Do this until the whole group is part of the picture. This game is to go very, very fast without putting much thought in – just GO! Once the picture is complete and everyone is an object, tell the students on a count of three to become a moving picture or a moving talking picture.