Kids Make Dance – Grades Pre-K-2

Kathleen Isaac, Dance Educator

Title of Learning Experience: The Dance of the Scary Hole

The Scary Hole

LEARNING CONTEXT

Teacher/Learner:Teacher(s) as facilitator(s); students as dance learners, creators, photographers, assessors, and dance advocatesCurricular:Grades Pre-K-1 - Dance, Music, Visual Art, Technology and Literacy(Reading, Responding, Dancing and Recording)School/Community:Students value dance, music and art, connecting it to what they know,learn are able to do about being scared. By sharing their dances, studentsreinforce and celebrate working collaboratively, making choices,completing tasks, developing dance, good work habits and buildingcommunity by sharing accomplishments with others. These are corevalues at P.S. 165

STANDARDS ADDRESSED IN NEW YORK CITY BLUEPRINT FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING IN DANCE PRE-K-12:Dancemaking:

Develop Skills and TechniquesThrough participation in dance classes, students achieve the ability to:

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Articulate body parts, shapes and actions.

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Execute basic locomotor (traveling) movements.

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Control traveling and freezing, starting and stopping.

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Replicate and recall movements and patterns.

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Move with a range of dynamics.

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Move in different levels, (low, middle, high) and directions (forward, back side, up, down).

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Execute simple basic elements of various dance forms.

Improvise

Students explore dance movement through improvisation, demonstrating the ability to:

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Work with focus and concentration.

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Invent original body movements in response to music, images, words, ideas or symbols.

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Distinguish a range of movement qualities to express feelings, characteristics, sensations andenvironments.

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Vary the size of movements.

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Combine levels, directions and pathways with body actions.

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Respond to musical mood, tempo and beat.1

Kathleen IsaacDance EducatorLesson Plan – The Dance of the Scary Hole

Perform

Students perform, demonstrating the ability to:

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Recall, repeat and refine movement sequences.

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Dance with fullness of movement.

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Dance with expressiveness.

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Dance in coordination with a musical beat and mood.

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Understand appropriate performer and audience behavior.

Respond, Reflect, Revise:

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Evaluate informal in-class performances and video evidence of student performances, usingobservation, discussion, drawings, video and simple rubrics designed by the class. Consider questions such as: In what ways can dance look different to an audience from the way it feels to a performer?

Developing Dance Literacy:

Apply Dance Vocabulary, Terminology and Symbols

Students develop a basic dance vocabulary, demonstrating the ability to:

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Use words and symbols to describe and name dance activities and ideas.

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Respond to action words and symbols with appropriate movement.

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Understand and demonstrate choreography ideas (e.g., solo, duet, unison).

Making Connections:

Understand Dance History and the social and Cultural Significance of Dance

(Theatrical, Ritual &Social Dance)By actively observing the movement of other students, people and things; and learning dances fromvarious cultures and historical periods, students will:

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Apply dance concepts to the world outside the classroom.

Connect Dance to Other Arts and Disciplines

Through activities including other disciplines in dance study, students will illuminate understanding of dance, demonstrating the ability to:

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Respond to other arts and disciplines in dance movement.

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Understand how other art media combine with dance.

Utilize Technology in Connection With Dance

Students respond to and discuss videotapes of student and professional dance performances,demonstrating the ability to:

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Discuss the difference between a moving image and a photograph, and between dancing and posing.

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Use digital technology as a tool for assessing criteria for dance. *

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Use digital technology as a tool for making dance visible to the school community*

These are not indicators from the Blueprint, but are indicators in technology specifically addressed in this lesson.

Connect Dance to Health and Well-Being

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Understand personal space and its relation to safety and well-being.2

Kathleen IsaacDance EducatorLesson Plan – The Dance of the Scary Hole

Working With Community and Cultural Resources

Share Dance Experiences in and Between Schools

Through in-school experiences in dance class, between classes or with visiting schools, students will:

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Understand that dance is part of the school day.

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Demonstrate dance learning to other students.

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Share dance learning with parents.

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Discuss dance with the classroom teacher.

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Share dance experiences with an older dance buddy.

LESSON (Session 1):Teaching Points:

1)Dancers use their bodies to express emotions. They do thiswithout making any sound.2)Dancers make dances based on their own ideas as well as ideas theyget from stories, and pictures.3)When people read, talk, think, plan and make dances together, they arecreating a dance community.

Materials/Class Set-up:

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Class folder and a pencil are placed on floor.

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Some Things Are Scary,

written

Florence Parry Heide

is placed in front of room.

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Blank Chart Paper is hung or taped up, with markers available

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Music for warm-up (and dance making activity is accessible)

Motivation:

Dance Educator begins class by asking the children if they are ever scared of anything, and if so, to raisetheir hand and share. Responses are recorded on a list or web. Students are asked to make a shape withtheir body and an expression with their face, without making any sound that shows what it looks like to be scared or frightened. Dance Educator turns his/her back, covers eyes, counts to three and turnsaround to face children, who make silent shapes and facial expressions reflecting the feeling of beingscared.

Some Things Are Scary

, by Florence Parry Heide is shown and the dance educator states thatthere is a book written about scary things that we will read either at the end of class or the followingweek. The same process is repeated, with Dance Educator asking if the children are ever happy aboutanything, and if so, to share what it is. He/she then proceeds to say that in this lesson, dancers will learnto show both being scared (fear) and happiness, using silent body shapes and facial expressions.

Warm-up:

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Using the student-generated list of words describing things that are scary and happy, the danceeducator elicits movement ideas and combines them with body isolations, shapes, locomotor andnon-locomotor movement.

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Example:Head - You are a big spider. Look all around to see if you can spot a fly. Look up, look down,right, left, all around, and do you see one? Use your long, long spider arms/legs to reach and pull that fly into you very, very tightly. Curl yourself up around that juicy fly and eat it up!3