Programming for Educators

Our core curriculum of athletic Sword Games, Improvisational Theater and Trust Building are designed to teach creativity, communication, teamwork and critical thinking skills, all while fostering a strong sense of community among students.  The sheer variety of games we play allows us to engage with every learning style, though we are happy to concentrate on one of our specialties for a more focused class on request.  Further, depending on your interest, these programs can culminate in a live action role playing Adventure Game:  a unique experience in which students are encouraged to develop a new understanding of themselves and their peers in the context of an archetypal fantasy world.

Here are some examples of the kinds of programs and events we can offer to schools, libraries and home schooling groups.  Because we believe in inclusive, student-oriented teaching methods, we’re happy to work with you to tailor an experience to your students’ needs.

After-School Programs:

CTF Class:  Adding foam swordplay to the schoolyard classic, our version of Capture The Flag is much more active, dynamic and team-oriented than its tag-based counterpart.  In one of our CTF classes, students can expect to engage in numerous active games that push the boundaries between competitive and cooperative interaction, learning to act out high-intensity physical play safely and responsibly.  The evolving complexity of our games will force them to build both leadership and team-building skills.  For the full impact, we suggest 1-2 hour classes each week for 6-10 weeks.  Participants should be ages 8 and up.

… with an Adventure Game:  We take our CTF program and add in the rest of our curriculum:  Trust Games, to further engender strong community bonds and emphasize cooperative abilities through interpersonal focus and communication.  Improvisational Theater, which teaches self-confidence and quick thinking.  And, of course, the LARP Adventure Game itself– a final class session in which students will become characters they themselves create and design, and use the problem-solving skills they’ve learned in a fantastical context.  Because of the sheer amount of content this adds, we suggest 2-3 hour classes each week for 8-10 weeks.

Young Adventurers:  Younger students (ages 6-8) who love make-believe benefit from flexible, responsive teaching and lots of 1-on-1 communication.  In our Young Adventurers programs, they receive exactly that: a chance to express their creativity and playfulness in a supportive, imaginative environment.  Every class session, students play in another episode of an interactive fantasy adventure– designed around their own creations, stories, drawings, and ideas.  We recommend that these classes be no longer than 1 hour each week, and that they run for 6-10 weeks.

Improvisational Theater:  In an Improv class, we’ll teach students the basics of a fun and challenging art form.  They’ll learn to trust their partners and their instincts while quickly generating scenes for an audience of their peers in a supportive and constructive atmosphere.  Improv teaches  teamwork, confidence and problem-solving– helping to train public speaking skills while diminishing the associated anxieties.  We can build a theatrical curriculum to match a wide variety of time constraints, from 1-3 hour classes over the course of 4-10 weeks.

Classroom Programs:

Living Curriculum:  We work with classroom teachers to design custom events and activities to bring course material to life. Students research issues, historic people and moments in time. Through improvisation techniques, they learn the materials by living it as the historical figures or literary characters in question, then teach it to their peers through group sharing.  We supply costumes & props where appropriate. Ideal for K – 5, and middle school English and Social Studies classes.  We can run a single event for 1-4 hours or an extended activity for 2-6 weeks, as desired.

Community Workshop:  There may be a bullying epidemic among today’s students, but with over 10 years of experience in classrooms and camps, we have developed a uniquely safe and supportive method to create community through understanding, team building and play. In this course we teach students to engage with each other using fun games and exercises, and help to quash bullying through the use of empathy-teaching role play.  We can make a difference in as little as one 2-4 hour session, or we can run consecutive classes for 2-4 weeks for even deeper bonding.

Literary Programs:

Literary Adventure:  We fill your library with characters from your students’ favorite literature, using costumes and props to construct a scavenger hunt adventure that challenges their problem-solving and mediation skills.  This works best as a one day event lasting 1-4 hours.

Story Time Theater:  Our staff give a dramatic reading of a piece determined by the educator– maybe even one or more pieces written by your students!– and then facilitate students playing out the scenes from the story with them, along with alternative scenarios that encourage critical thinking about the characters and their perspectives.  We suggest that these programs last for 1­-2 hours, and they can range from a single workshop to four weekly sessions.

Writing Workshop:  Our staff use their encyclopedic knowledge of storytelling and character development to work with students to write the fiction that is waiting to pour out of their minds.  Students will brainstorm ideas, share pieces, and get peer feedback in a supportive and constructive format.  We suggest that these workshops last 1-­2 hours, depending on the age range of the students, and last between 3 and ­10 weeks.

If your school or library is interested in in Wayfinder programming, please contact us!  We’ll arrange a time to come to your school to present our work to your teaching staff and/or administration.  We are flexible and can alter our programming to suit the learning needs of your students and your available facilities.  We have worked with both public and alternative educational institutions and are experienced in teaching special needs students.  Fees are scaled to scope of the project.

To book an event at your library or school, please call us at (845) 481 0776 or send us an email at [email protected]