Beatitudes

Drama Idea

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Pantomime (Charades).

Lesson:

Split into two teams.

Write down each of the following Beatitudes on a piece of paper and put in a hat. Invite a team's player to come forward, draw a beatitude from the hat and act it out.

You can have each beatitude in there twice for reinforcement. They can't repeat any of the actions/motions used by the first person who acted out the beatitude.

To keep the kids from shouting out all the beatitudes, give the Player 30 seconds to pantomime the beatitude, then have each team whisper to each other to figure out which beatitude it was, then write their answer on a card.  If no team gets it right, put the slip back in the hat.

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
• Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
• Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
• Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

After playing charades, assign one beatitude to two people and give them 4 minutes to come up with a quick situation/skit dramatizing the beatitude.

Give them a "location" for the dramatizing of their particular beatitude, such as, "Act out Blessed are the Peacemakers at home between your siblings."  "at school"

 An idea from Neil MacQueen

Venice, FL

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.

Beatitude

Drama Idea

Summary of Lesson Activities:

"Pair Poses" Art-Drama Project

The Shape of the Beatitudes: 

Students "pose" each Beatitude from the waist up and transfer that pose to one of several possible mediums:  

• posers lay on butcher paper where they are outlined, decorated and can have props painted in to better demonstrate the meaning of their pose.
• students use wire or tin foil or clay to form sculpture shape of the idea

For example, the student "inheriting the earth" posed with their arms extended up, and a painting of the Earth was added into their hands with watercolors. The meek child was traced extra small.

For example, --for "blessed are those who mourn...shall be comforted,"  one kid posed sad and painted their tracing all grey, --while the "comforting kid" posed with their arm around the sad kid. The comforter was colorfully painted, and their color was starting to flow over into the grey kid. Great visual.

For example, the "persecuted" poser had their arms look like they were blocking threats that the students painted above them (the threats were insults about people who go to church), and their partner painted rewards in heaven above them.

For example, the blessed "peacemaker" posed with their hands in front of them, and the painter added two halves of a peace sign that the traced peacemaker appeared to be putting together.

Hang in the hallway for all to see.

HOW TO:

Assign Beatitudes to students to read aloud, explain, and then prepare a POSE they will trace onto a large piece of butcher paper. 

Once everyone has been traced, pull out water color paints and have each student write their Beatitude phrase inside their traced outline and then artistically paint their tracing to help explain the Beatitude (see examples above).  

Encourage them to paint their pose and add in designs/props to conveys what their pose and Beatitude phrase is all about.  This is a great opportunity for discussion.

We did this in our church and it was a great drama-art project that gave the teacher plenty of things to talk about.

An idea from Neil MacQueen

Venice, FL

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.