To complete the semester of learning, my class was able to perform for another second grade class. We first performed the Israeli Zemir Atik dance. The students did it by themselves with a little bit of prompting from me. Following that the students performed a loosely structured dance I called "The Conversation". The students responded to a picture I held up relating to a question and answer. For example, I held up a picture of a rabbit. Depending upon if the student had a pet or not they responded in a certain way we had practiced. Other questions or prompts included: how many siblings do you have?, what kind of a house do you live in?, what is your favorite holiday?. In between the questions, the students locomoted to different places in the room using their favorite way to locomote. To begin and end the dance, the students chose one of their favorite activities and embodied it in a shape. Overall, the students did a great job and I think our audience wanted to join them! I've learned quite a bit in teaching these second graders and hope they'll continue dancing! Taking a bow!
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One thing I love about the arts is that in many, if not all areas of the world, art is used to reflect culture. We can learn much about other people, their traditions, customs, and lifestyles by studying the art they produce.
In November, during Native American Heritage month, a guest come into all of the second grade classes who shared Native American social dances with the students. My class learned about the potato dance, where a potato (or tennis ball in our case) is placed in between the foreheads of two people and they are expected to march to the beat of a drum. The students found this to be quite hilarious. In December, I taught my class an Israeli dance, Zemir Atik. We learned about the history of the dance and the lady who created it. Walking, clapping, and snapping on the beat was a little bit tricky. This was their first attempt to learn and then recall specific choreography. Some students greatly excelled at this and others I think preferred the creative dancing we had been exploring in lessons previously. Whatever their preference was, I was proud of them for being able to remember the dance in the following weeks when we reviewed it and performed it for another class. Over the past few weeks, I have tried to incorporate standards or at least concepts from other learning areas, such as math or visual arts. Though I am an advocate of dance for the sake of dance (after all, I am a dance major), I think there is great value especially at the elementary level in integrating interdisciplinary ideas in dance lesson plans because a) it allows students to make connections to themselves and their world which helps them to be curious, adaptable, multifaceted, and diplomatic humans and b) it offers kinesthetic learners and all learners the opportunity to learn by physically embodying a concept. A few of the ideas we explored were sequencing (using words like first, then, to end) , math comparisons, and positive and negative space. To teach positive and negative space (and to passively encourage students to use a large kineshpere), I brought elastics sewed or tied into circular bands. We began class by exploring some basic shapes and learning about positive and negative space through the use of pictures and demonstrations. I set a few rules about how to use the elastic bands and then gave each student a band. They were so excited to have a prop to dance with. I wish I had taken a moment to just turn on some music and let them dance and play and use their imaginations. The thought crossed my mind but I questioned whether I would have been able to get them on task again afterwards. If the moment arises another time in the future, I want to try giving students an opportunity to explore a bit if they show so much excitement in an idea. After doing shapes on their own with the band, I formed groups so some students could place themselves in the negative space while others held the bands in varying shapes. In teaching math comparisons (greater than, less than, and equal to) and levels, I used an idea from Ali Moon, a previous Arts Bridge dance scholar. We began by reviewing math comparison symbols and replicating the symbols with shapes in our bodies. Without any prompting the students made shapes on different levels and with different body parts. I was very happy about that! We then went through a few comparison scenarios. Following a prompt, students would go to one side of the classroom depending upon how they answered the prompt. We counted the number of students on each side of the classroom and made the math symbol which would create a math comparison between the two sides. We then connected greater than with a high level, less than with a lower level, and equal to with a medium level. I gave partnerships two numbers and they created a math comparison dance, where they danced at the level of the number they received in comparison with their partner. (Example: One student was 128, the other 260, student 128 danced on a low level and student 260 danced on a high level, then they froze in a less than shape at the end.) Both my mentor who was observing that day and my classroom teacher told me about a student who made an exclamation when she recognized she was doing math. "I didn't know you could do a math dance!" That was a good moment.
Today, the students learned about axial movement and built upon their knowledge of locomotor movement. Last class, the students successfully were able to walk, run, leap, jump, hop, skip, and gallop on different levels and at varying tempos. I recently learned that their is a correlation between skipping and reading ability, so I emphasized skipping and we even tried skipping backwards, taking turns in lines across the classroom. I was impressed at their ability to skip backwards!
After experimenting with axial movement today, the students performed a dance featuring axial and locomotor movements. The difficult part of the dance was remembering the dance sequence when given music cues to perform. Half of the class performed for the other half, and after each half performed I asked the students, what types of movements they saw. They identified locomotor steps and used adjectives to describe the axial movement. Though I planned well for this lesson, I discovered that I if I were to teach it again, i would need to change a few of the transitions. For example, to teach them axial movement I gave each of them a piece of tape to stand on and dance over. I tried giving students a piece of tape as they reviewed locomotor steps at the beginning of class, but I could not remember which students I had given the pieces to. I ended up having them stop and raise their hand if they did not have a piece yet, and a majority of the class raised their hands. I finished handing out pieces of tape, but it definitely took up some valuable time. The students clearly met my expectations today in regards to their focus while dancing. I was very pleased! I wanted them to think about what they were doing when they were doing it and to be serious in their intent. I referred to a video I used to teach them axial movement, explaining that dancers mostly communicate with their bodies and not with their voices. (This video: Takedema). After giving this example, they remained focused for the remaining time again as they danced or froze in shapes. I had my first day of teaching at Dry Creek Elementary! Truthfully, I was a little nervous walking into the classroom, but I walked out excited and ready to go back. Today was brief and the first day I met the students, so we did one activity--The Name Dance.
The students stood in a circle. We took turns going around the circle, saying our names while doing a simple dance move. By the end, we had created a name dance that greatly helped me to remember everyone's name. I am looking forward to diving into basic dance elements next week, and seeing if the students remember the established rules. My name is Lindsey Christensen and I will be teaching dance in Ms. Gustafson's 2nd grade class at Dry Creek Elementary.
This class will be focusing on teaching dance basics, based upon BEST (Body, Energy, Space, Time) fundamentals. These fundamentals include learning how to perform various axial, locomotor, and non-locomotor movements, to differentiate between positive and negative space, and to apply energy qualities to movement, among many others. Ms. Gustafson wants the students to be able to have a dance experience for the sake of dancing! Cross-curriculum integrated lessons will be a part of the class, but will not be the focus. Students will also have many opportunities to create dances and perform for their peers. With this teaching experience, I hope to be able to improve my overall teacher presence and management skills, while learning to love my students and be aware of their needs. I hope to be able to deepen my understanding of dance as I explain it to others and hope that those I teach will have opportunities to use what they are learning. Ultimately, I want to better understand by strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, so that I can use them and address them as I go forward. |
AuthorMy name is Lindsey Christensen and I am an Arts Bridge scholar. I am excited and grateful to develop as a teacher through the ArtsBridge program. I love dance and I love sharing it with others. Archives
January 2019
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