First week summary:  We did an activity has both language and drama possibilities.  It is a common drama game called object transformation.  The basics are this:  A person stands in front of the group holding a common object.  We used a marker, but it could be an eraser, a ruler, anything you have in the classroom.  For English Language Learners we provide a sentence frame for them to work with.
It was this:
"This is not a marker, this is a________________. "  They name another noun,  and then they dramatically transform that marker into the new object.  It could be anything.  For example if a student said:  "This is not a marker this is a dog" , he or she would pet their marker, and even say words, like "Nice dog".  We broke up into groups and each group of 5 came up with as many transformations as they could.  They then performed them for the rest of the group. I'll add this now, but I'll write more about it in later posts:  daily performance expectations are crucial for young english language learners, as they should be spending at least 50% of their time (according to the latest research) talking. The sentence frame is also crucial for ELL students (unnecessary as a mainstream drama game) in that it gives everyone, even the newest of newcomers,  something to work with and models english language structure.  Students could use whatever simple nouns they might know (cat and dog are the most common for the newest language learners).  For more advanced learners coming up with unusual words was the challenge posed to them.  The first time the kids mostly did gestures to indicate the new object.  Here is a list of what the class came up with:
 

A bomb, red bull, a shoe, a dog, La Llorona, a book, a tomahawk, a plane, a hot dog, Ms. Rathwell’s nose, a boat, lipstick, nail polish, a bow and arrow, a gun, a telescope a knife, a building, Pinocchio’s nose, a unicorn, a cane, a shark, a bunny, a wolf, a door, gum, a magic wand, a pen, a boyfriend, a computer, a telephone, glasses, a cigarette.

Our  next step will be working with this list, adding specific words and phrases that can be said with each transformation.  We will also make a list of verbs or actions that help to communicate to others what their new object is.  Many possibilities, including scene creation, dialogue and tableux are possible to extend both the dramatic and language possibilities.  We'll see what we do with this tomorrow.