The Activity Bank

The GIVE Activity Bank is a resource bank of short activities or skill-based tasks that already include supports and accommodations to meet a range of students’ needs. These activities can be easily added to your lesson—with small adjustments for your unique students and classroom—to make it more inclusive.

These activities have been submitted as is by New York City Teaching Artists from New Victory Theater, ArtsConnection, and Community-Word Project.

  • Human Machine

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
    Art Forms: Theater, Dance

    This community-building physical activity helps your students develop collaboration, communication, and creative skills as they work together as a team to comp…

  • I Am – Anaphora Poem

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
    Art Forms: Literary Arts

    In this community-building activity, students create “I am” poems. In doing so, they learn about anaphora poems, share about themselves, and learn about others.

  • If I Were an Animal

    Ages: Early Childhood (PK-2)
    Art Forms: Visual Arts, Theater, Dance

    This activity activates students’ imaginations and incorporates making sounds and listening. It can be expanded to include movement.

  • Legato Staccato Name Game

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (6-8)
    Art Forms: Music

    This warm-up activity will support your students in learning their classmates’ names as they develop ensemble skills and develop their music vocabulary.

  • Magic Trick Animation

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
    Art Forms: Media Arts

    In this activity, students will be magicians and use sticky notes, their hands, and a prop to create the illusion of objects appearing, disappearing, and switc…

  • Make a Wave Dance

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5)
    Art Forms: Visual Arts, Dance

    This activity strengthens social emotional skills in the classroom through co-generating ideas, celebrating individual creativity and imagination as your stude…

  • Making Foley Sounds

    Ages: Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
    Art Forms: Music, Theater, Media Arts

    This activity helps students discover how the sounds used in movies and animations are created behind the scenes, by practicing making sounds with various obje…

  • Movement Extremes

    Ages: Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
    Art Forms: Dance

    This activity invites students to think about size, speed, and specificity of movements in dance improvisation with a series of descriptive prompts. This lesso…