Create Radio Plays in Your Classroom

This is one of my favourite activities to do in the classroom.

The first thing I do is introduce my students to the genre of Old Time Radio. I want them to understand that before television and movies, we could listen to all sorts of programs on the radio. I share with them some of the old Superman episodes as well as a few sitcoms and comedy shows.

I then divide my class into several small groups and do some guided writing with all of them. I have done this successfully with three different classes. The first time I did it, we performed our plays live-to-air on the local radio station.

Nowadays, I record the radio plays using a free computer program called Audacity. I have used this program for a variety of recordings over the past several years. It is quite versatile and best of all, it's free.

This is the stand-out play this year. It was written by a group of Grade 3 students. They came up with the story completely on their own. I fleshed it out a bit and shaped it to have a clear progression and ending, but they wrote all of the dialogue.

I am quite proud with the work my students did.

Listen to our classroom radio play "Jungle Girls" with the player below or download it for free.



And then have your students create their own radio plays. It's always a hit and a lot of fun!

Teaching Tip Tuesday - over 100 useful tips, tricks, and lesson plans.