About Improv 2 Improve

How the Games Work for Kids

The games give kids an oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice AND FAIL FAB­U­LOUS­LY at the behav­iours we want them to learn. Each game is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice social emo­tion­al skills, while main­ly being a FUN brain break for the kids. They don’t even know they’re learn­ing any­thing impor­tant. They just are.

Chil­dren learn through play. Maria Montes­sori suc­cess­ful­ly cre­at­ed an entire aca­d­e­m­ic mod­el based on that idea, as did Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers.

Impro­vi­sa­tion was specif­i­cal­ly designed so peo­ple — chil­dren — could prac­tice feel­ing dif­fer­ent ways in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions and learn to feel com­fort­able in group situations.

The games work because they’re easy to learn, easy to play, easy to implement into classroom life.

Peo­ple need brain breaks to work and learn at their opti­mal lev­els. These games take few­er than 3 min­utes to play, yet pack a wal­lop of learn­ing with­out ever say­ing so.

Before an instruc­tion­al block tran­si­tion, a teacher says, “Put your read­ing away, take out your math, and then come to the cir­cle for a quick game.” The teacher begins coach­ing the game after about 30 sec­onds. The kids who are ready join the cir­cle. The rest fin­ish their tasks and join as they are ready.

Why the Games Work For You

It’s easy out of the box! You can work Improv2Improve games into your day, not work your day around them. The games are short, need­ing as lit­tle as 1 to 3 min­utes, per­fect for a Brain Break between more men­tal­ly tax­ing activ­i­ties in your class­room. It’s com­po­nent­less — no need to find pieces, make copies or bring any­thing but your­self and the right mind­set. Play freely with­out con­stant assessments.

Improv for the class­room was cre­at­ed by Vio­la Spolin in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. It’s not a new idea; it’s just repack­aged and reimag­ined for the 21st cen­tu­ry with easy-to-use game packs and aligned stan­dards that dri­ve SEL behavior.

Easily integrated into your day

You’re busy and we get that! Improv 2 Improve’s SEL games are unique because they don’t ask more of your time. We know there are a lot of great SEL pro­grams out there, but the best of them want time you don’t have.

Effort­less­ly work Improv 2 Improve games into your day, not work your day around them!

Unique Features

Unlike oth­er SEL pro­grams, Improv to Improve is eas­i­ly scal­able, work­ing for a class­room, a cohort, a school or a dis­trict. Because it’s com­po­nent­less, that scale is afford­able. While the packs include online train­ing, you can take advan­tage of our exclu­sive KKIT pro­gram (Zoom or in-per­son). SEL pro­grams abound, but there’s noth­ing like i2i.

The Packs

The Green and Pur­ple Packs con­tain all games nec­es­sary to imple­ment the pre‑K through 12 scope and sequence for CASEL standards.

The Green Pack

Express and Engage

Green Pack Games are filled with group dynam­ic fun that also teach­es impor­tant self-con­trol and self-man­age­ment skills hid­den beneath the sur­face. Rather than focus­ing on just one sit­u­a­tion, chil­dren are able prac­tice improv behav­iors in the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tions the games nat­u­ral­ly provide.

The Purple Pack

Laugh and Learn

Pur­ple Pack Games focus on inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships and prob­lem solv­ing. The games pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hone speak­ing and lis­ten­ing skills in a non-judg­men­tal envi­ron­ment. The games use lan­guage to cre­ate fun, releas­ing stu­dents from the pres­sure to be “right” or clever.

Meet Lisa

Lisa is an edu­ca­tor, a moth­er, and a believ­er that both teach­ers’ and stu­dents’ lev­els of JOY are the #1 con­trib­u­tors to suc­cess­ful class­rooms and schools. Her dream is for stu­dents to learn because they love learn­ing and do it in an envi­ron­ment full of joy so they can fill their brains with knowl­edge, while they learn strate­gies to nav­i­gate their social-emo­tion­al worlds. That belief of hers, plus her expe­ri­ence tak­ing improv class with the queen of mak­ing stu­dents smile, @katkennyimprov, led to Lisa cre­at­ing i2i.