What you need:
- Short prose piece (preferably fiction) that has many punctuation marks (periods, exclamation points, commas, question marks, etc.)
What to do:
- Looking at the story you have chosen, discuss the different punctuation marks and decide on a sound effect for each. You might whistle a scale for a comma, put a finger into your mouth and make a pop sound for a period, and clap your hands for a question mark.
- Next, devise an action to go with each punctuation mark. For example, you could give a deep bow for a comma, throw both arms into the air for capital letters, and turn around for an exclamation point. Experiment with different movements to find ones you can agree on and perform successfully!
- Now comes the "performance." One person reads the story, while the other performs the punctuation on cue.
- Try switching roles of performer and reader, with the same piece or with a different one.
From 50 Wonderful Word Games by Alan Trussell-Cullen
(Scholastic Professional Books)
