Folk Dance

Grade Level: Any

Time: 15-30 minutes

Simple Square Dance

Lesson by Claire Draginis &

Haley Steger

Overview

Materials

Students will learn basic square dancing steps and use them in a dance during
class.

Songs such as Cotton Eye Joe, Ozark

Rag, Red River Valley, Darling
Nellie Grey, etc.

Objectives
1.
2.

Students will demonstrate and use square dancing steps.

Students will study cultural aspects of American Dance.

Formations:
Circle, square

Activities/Procedures
1.
2.
3.

4.

Pair students, make groups of four pairs.

Have students create the square: one pair along each side.
Begin teaching the individual moves:
Honor your: Students bow slightly to their partner or the person they
share a corner with (the corner).
Circle: Students join hands, move around the circle in the indicated
direction.
Do-si-do: Partners face each other and cross arms, pass their partners
right shoulder, cross behind partners back, and walk backwards to
original position.
Promenade: Students face the same direction, hold each others right
hands and left hands, walk around the circle counter-clockwise.
Swing: Partners join right elbows and skip around one another.
Star: Half of each pair puts right hand into the air and walks into the
middle of the circle, rotate once until back with original partner.
Play music for students to dance to.

Questions to ask/discuss
1.

Who has square danced in

the past?

2.

What do you think of when

you think of square dancing?

Common Core Standards-Dance

A.4.2 Define and maintain personal space and move safely in groups throughout
the general space
A.4.9 Demonstrate rhythmic awareness by moving to a musical beat and
responding to changes in tempo
(Not available for history/cultural studies)

Evaluation/Reflection/Teaching Tips
Encourage students to move to the beat, they will have to modify their
movements.

Simple Square Dance