Aims

-To get the group paying attention to how it is to be on the "outside" and be expected to fit in.

          -To gather perceptions about what it means to "fit" in a variety of senses.

-To explore different ways that one can "fit in" to an environment first through investigation of shape

          -To create scenes and pictures as a group.

Objectives

          -Students will brainstorm what it means to "fit in" to something.

          -Students will           warm up their bodies and voices by participating in facilitator-lead warm up activities.

          -Students will create scenes and pictures with each other portraying different places that they may have been in.

          -Students will move their bodies to create different shapes that may convey meaning both individually and relative to one another.

Activities

1)   Warm ups

-Get in a large circle around the room

-Instruct the students to follow along in stretches, demonstrate them and call them out as you are doing them

~Bend at the waist, reach out as far as you can with your body in half, drop to a hang, hold your elbows, see if you can touch your toes, come back up

~Reach your hands up to the ceiling as high as they can go with still keeping your feet flat on the ground, raise onto your toes, release and shrink into a little ball on the ground

~Do a couple of lunges to find a new spot in the circle, switching with another person.  See how many lunges it takes you and try to stretch even further the next time.  Once everyone has gone across, cross through the circle again lunging.

~Shake it out!

2)   Exploring Shape

~Have everyone walk around the room and move their bodies in different positions.  Tell them to be aware of the shapes that they are creating.  Make different shapes with body: round, angular, mixture

~Now look at others around you.  Do the shapes that they are making make you want to change yours?  See how you play off of one another.

~Play Tag Shape: one person comes to the center and creates a shape and another person creates a shape along with that one. A new person may come in to create a shape, but then the person who has been there the longest has to leave.  There has to be 2 people creating the shape together all of the time.

~Ask, "What did you notice about the way that the shapes changed?  How did it transform?  Were you influenced by the person before you?  What kinds of pictures were created with two people instead of just one?  How did you fit together with the other person?"

3)   What do you mean "fit?"

-Put a big piece of butcher paper up on the wall and draw a line down the middle of it.  Write up against the line the word "Fit" and give markers for students to write under it a graffiti wall of what that means to them and what thoughts or feelings they have associated with it to get a general idea of "fit."  Come up with a class definition of fit and write it at the top of the paper.

~Ask, "How do you fit? Where do you fit?  Why do you fit?  What do you fit?" 

-On the other half of the butcher paper, write "fitting in" and have the students again write words, thoughts, or phrases related to it. 

~After 2 minutes, or until the writing has died down, have everyone step back and look at what they wrote.  "Are there any similarities between the sides?  What do you think about how adding ‘-ting in' changes the things that you wrote?"

~Come up with a definition for "fitting in" and write it at the top of that side of the paper.

4)   Group Shapes

-Split into groups of 6 or so.  Select a location for the group to be in.  Have one person stand in a certain position doing a simple, repeatable action and then one by one have others come and stand somewhere relative to them.

~Try creating a specific shape that comes as each person adds something new with their bodies.  This is to be done without talking.  Perform the scenes/pictures for the other group(s) and see if they can guess what location you are in as each person adds to the group shape.

~Depending on where you stand, do you feel like you fit?  How do you know?  How does the picture change when you add to it?

5)   One plus One Creates a Scene

-Have one person choose a situation out of the hat of a place that they could be in and not tell the rest of the group what it is.  (For example: classroom, playground, Post office, Baseball game, library, grocery store.)

~That person does not tell the rest of their group what they chose and then does an action that may be done in that place and repeats it.

~One at a time, someone else joins the picture and does a different action based off of what place they think they might be in that would add to the picture. 

~After performing these for the other group again, see if the members of the performing group know what location they were in.

6)   Everyone Plus One

-One person leaves the room and the rest of the group decided on a place that they will try to create by moving their bodies and performing actions.

~As the rest of the group is going about their actions, the person is called back into the room and asked to try and create an action that will fit with the rest of the group. 

~Following the same activity, have 2 people leave the room and try then re-enter and come right into the scene with an action

~Try this with 4 people leaving, half of the group, then everyone but 2 people leaving the room.

~After doing this a couple of times, ask how this relates to what was written on the board about fitting in.  "How does it feel to try and fit in with the rest of the group?  Was it comfortable for you, or did it make you nervous?  What can we learn about ourselves and helping others to fit in through these exercises? Does anyone have any questions or comments about the things we did today?"  And then you're done for the day.  J