The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting FAY ANS A Presented by Darla Meek and Kimberly Nolen Darla Meek@tamuc.edu kimnolen9@gmail.com Bill Martin Jr Memorial Symposium April 7, 2016 “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and | may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” ~ Chinese Proverb ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/NolenBENEFITS Here are just a few of the benefits of using movement acti ies in your classroom: fee BENEFITS With these motor images securely in the body, the children then have a vocabulary of an educational setting. Creative movement increases a child’s concentration, basic timing, body control, strength, balance, and awareness of personal space. Purposeful movement allows children to release pent-up energy. This can help children concentrate more easily on academic subjects. Movement increases blood flow through the body, which results in more oxygen getting to the brain. owe LEARNING BENEFITS Children are more likely to remember and to value what they experience with their physical bodies. Children learn faster and retain information longer when their whole bodies are involved. Movement activities help with focus and concentration, which are both essential in creating an environment for learning in the classroom. When children are allowed to express themselves and contribute their own ideas to a lesson, the resultant learning is internalized and owned by the children. Children find ways to show in movement ~ through gesture, locomotor movement, or whole-body shapes and movements - the concept which is being studied. This develops an understanding on many different levels, and aids in long-term memory of the concept. Using movement heightens expression because it engages the emotions. Movement brings a lesson to life and highlights concepts in a way that nothing else can. Creative movement is FUN. SOCIAL BENEFITS Movement work in groups increases group awareness, which affects classroom climate. Group movement activities help children learn to work together for a common goal. Problem solving in groups develops leadership skills, such as confidence, initiative, negotiation, and collaboration. ‘Adding movement to a lesson gives a teacher an opportunity to relate with students in a different way. The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 2TEACHING TIPS Use visual cues as much as possible. Choose a small group of children to demonstrate the idea, Teach a start and stop signal. Train the children to respond immediately when they hear your signal. To help children know where they are to stand, place masking tape or Velero on the floor, either in concentric circles, lines, scattered formation, etc. If the children will work in small groups to create something, keep the size of the groups small. Giving each child a specific task assures that everyone will contribute equally to the work. Only distribute materials (such as scarves, bean bags, etc.) when the children can perform the activity first without them. At times, small groups will share their work with the class. This is an excellent opportunity to teach audience etiquette. Take time to discuss this with the children. Instruct the audience members think of at least two specific complements to give the performers. Teach your children how to begin and end a performance well. | use four words: SILENCE, STILLNESS, ENERGY, and FOCUS. Allow for change and spontaneous improvisation. Have fun with the children! MOVEMENT CONCEPTS BODY Body Parts: head, arms, elbows, hands, back, stomach, legs, feet, etc. Body Shape: straight, curved, angular, twisted, wide, narrow Balan on balance, off balance SPACE Place: self space, general space Level: high, middle, low Direction: —_ forward, backward, right, left, up, down Pathway: straight, curved, zig-zag Size: big, medium, little Relationship: over, under, around, through, together, apart, etc. QUALITY Speed: slow, medium, fast Rhythm: —_ pulse, breath, pattern Weight: strong, light ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolensmooth, sharp free, bound single focus, multi-focus Warm Up ~ Brain Dance The Brain Dance is a series of exercises developed by Anne Green Gilbert. It is comprised of eight developmental movement patterns that healthy human beings naturally move through in the first year of life. The BrainDance is a centering body/brain movement tool for brain reorganization, oxygenation, and recuperation. The BrainDance prepares us for learning and helps with appropriate behavior and social skills. BrainDance Patterns + Breath + Tactile + Core-Distal + Head-Tail + Upper-Lower + Body Side + Cross Lateral + Vestibular SOURCE: http://creativedance.org/about/braindance/ ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 4Math Lesson ~ Counting Movements Materials: * Deck of cards with one number on each card, 1-20 ‘+ Deck of cards with one movement word on each card Process: 1. Choose one card from the number deck and one from the action deck. 2. Perform the action the number of times specified. (Example: 3 jumps, 5 punches, 19 crawls) 3. At first, have the children count aloud together. As they grow more comfortable, play a beat on an instrument for the number, so that the children count silently. Math Lesson ~~ Ratio Game * Divide students into partners. Partners face each other, left hand palm up, right hand on top of partner's left hand. * Everyone lightly taps a beat with the right hand into their partner's left hand. Tap twice as short/long on signal. Play a drum to keep the beat steady. * Now have partners decide who is A and who is B. Discuss the ratio between their movements and the drum: 2 to 1, 4 to 1, etc. * Challenge! “When | say switch, change to doing what your partner is doing.” Math Lesson ~ Fraction Action Process: 1. Divide the children into teams of 4-6. 2. Teach the following movements: ing cross-legged = % d. Lying down =0 3. Call out a number, such as 3. Discuss the myriad of ways the groups can manipulate themselves to create that number. 4. If desired, make this into a competitive game! The first team to create the number called get s a point. 5. Add operations! Call out “minus one!” or “Plus %!" Students must respond correctly to the command. ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 5Math Lesson ~ Synchronized Shaping Materials: children’s book featuring shapes set of cards with shapes, as indicated below SHAPES! SHAPES! SHAPES! AN. GU-LAR, CURVED, AND STRAIGHT. SHAPES! SHAPES! SHAPES! Get READ-Y TO. CRE ~ ATE! * Read a book featuring shapes (such as Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh) to the students. + Have students sit in personal spaces. Tell them to imagine that the roof of the room is missing. A helicopter flies overhead. The pilot looks down into the room, and sees this: (scattered dots) Can you change your bodies so that the pilot will see this? (scattered straight lines) + Continue to change the cards and have the students work together to create the shapes displayed. + Ask the students to “find another way to make that shape.” + Morph into conventional shapes: triangles, parallelograms, etc. The following ideas are from Anne Green Gilbert’s excellent book, Teaching the Three R’s through Movement Experiences. * Students divide into partners. One partner draws a shape on his partner’s back and the partner has to guess the shape. Switch. * One partner is the “driver” and the other is the “steering wheel.” The driver “steers” partner two into a shape (walking the outline of a shape on the floor). The steering wheel guesses the shape. * The entire class lines up behind a leader, who leads them around the room, drawing a shape on the floor. ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 6English/Language Arts Lesson ~ Haiku Materials Needed: Haiku, pitched and unpitched instruments What is Haiku? Haiku is one of the most important forms of traditional Japanese poetry, originally written by Zen monks. Haiku is known, today, as a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. However, this pattern is not strict, especially when writing in English. What haiku is can best be explained in a quote from The Haiku Handbook by William Higginson (p. 5): “When we compose haiku we are saying, ‘It is hard to tell you how | am feeling, Perhaps if | share with you the event that made me aware of these feelings, you will have similar feelings of your own.’...Unless we tell what it is that makes us feel sad or happy, how can (others) share our feelings....haiku is the answer to this what.” What to write about? ‘Some of the most interesting haiku describe daily situations in a way that gives the reader a brand new experience of a well-known event. The technique of cutting Each Haiku-poem can be divided into two parts, with a certain imaginative distance between ‘the two sections. This is called cutting. Both sections must enrich the understanding of the other. To make this cutting in English, either the first or the second line usually ends with a colon, long dash, or ellipsis. The seasonal theme Each Haiku must contain a kigo, a season word, to indicate the season in which the haiku is set. For example, cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicates winter, and mosquitoes indicate summer, but the season word isn't always that obvious. The summer river: Drifting clouds, soft, white, although there is a bridge, my horse curved in the sea’s reflection-- goes through the water. translucent rainbows. Torrential water Before us, lonely road thundering down the mountain cracked and dry, with steamy heat. pours into the sea. Above, two sea gulls. Playful summer breeze Looking at the clouds, rises over the sea cliff silver in the icy wind- pulled by a lone kite. space flows. The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 7The winds that blow - A lightning fias! ask them, which leaf on the tree between the forest trees will be next to go? | see sheets of rain. 1. Warm up. © Guide the students to explore each of the following words: reach float grow gather rise balance frolic cast hurl flow pull soar swing spike trot arch stretch crackle shimmer creep 2. Discuss poems. + Display haiku. Have students read the poems and think about which movement vocabulary words would work best with certain poems. + Scatter several haiku on the floor of the room. Ask the students to wander among the haiku and read each poem. Then ask students select one they like, without sharing their choice with others. Teacher asks students to raise a hand when their favorite is read. = fHave students form small groups based on their favorite haiku to discuss ideas and write down possibilities. = study the haiku and identify one key word in each line. Encourage students to select words that evoke a strong visual image or emotion. Underline the selected words, For ‘example (using a haiku by Issa) Lilies blooming thick and fast a skylark’s lonesome cry. 3. Create movement. = Instruct each group to decide on a silent shape for each underlined word. Encourage this physical shape to be expressive of the quality of the word, not a literal physical expression of the word. next, they must decide how to move from one shape to the next. Encourage the use of levels, pathways, contrasts, etc. «Give students time to work. They will narrate their poems as they move, or select someone to narrate for them, but everyone in the group should be moving. * if desired, add an instrument sound to enhance the movement. 4, Share. * Have the audience give positive comments. Guide them to give helpful hints that will help the performance be even more effective. Stress that the audience's view is different from the performer's view...so, the audience is not criticizing in any way, but rather helping the performance look better from their view. “The Power of Purposeful Movernent in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 85. As a group, write a haiku piece to sum up the poems. «Discuss the common elements: seasons of life, change, transitions, etc. + Distribute paper and pencils. Discuss the metrical arrangement of the poems. = Have students write individual lines that fit the form. Combine these ideas to create a class poem. 6. Decide how to move to the poem as a class. Possible final form: * Class poem and movement + Individual groups + Allgroups together, but no speaking * Class poem and movement WEBR RESOURCES Comett, Claudia E. (2013). Creating Meaning Through Literature and the Arts, fifth edition. Pearson: Boston, MA. {A treasure for the creative teacher! Thousands of ideas for using movement, music, art, and drama to teach children more effectively in a general classroom.) Gilbert, Anne Green. (2016). Brain Dance: Move Your Body, Grow Your Mind. vert, Anne Green. (1977). Teaching the Three R’s Through Movement Experiences. Burgess Publishing Company, Minneapolis, MN. {ideas for teaching math, science, spelling, etc. through utilizing the kinesthetic sense-) Jensen, Eric. (2005). Teaching with the Brain in Mind, second edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, (New research and practical strategies to enhance student comprehension and improve achievement. In Music with the Brain in Mind and Arts with the Brain in Mind, Mr. Jensen gives a compelling argument based on documented research of the importance of the arts in the classroom.) Katz, Susan Aand Thomas, Judith A. (2004). The Word in Play: Language, Music, and Movement in the Classroom. Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD. {Activity- based lessons for teaching language arts through poetry, music, and movement.) Kipnis, Lois and Gilbert, Marilyn. (1994) Have You Ever...Bringing Literature to Life Through Creative Dramatics. Alleyside Press, Hagerstown, MD. (Excellent resource for using drama to engage children in literature.) ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/NolenLandalf, Helen and Gerke, Pamela. (1996). Movement Stories for Young Children. Smith and Kraus, Inc., Lyme, NM. (Stories with movements. Thorough, organized, and very east to present.) Landalf, Helen. (1997). Moving the Earth: Teaching Science Through Movement. Smith and Kraus, Inc., Lyme, NM. (Lessons teaching everything from land forms, to volcanoes, to the water eycle..all through movement! As with ol the Landalf books, very easy to teach with its scrit-ike format) Nichols, Kerri Lynn. (2007). Music Moments to Teach Academics. Beatin’ Path Publications Luc. (A source book of activities, research, ond practical ideas to help teachers integrate music into the curriculum to enhance learning.) Snyder, Sue. Total Literacy: An Arts-Based Guide to Building Early Literacy Skills. The Total Learning Institute. (This guide is tailored to the needs of caretakers with limited education or arts background.) Wheeler, Candace. (2013). Lessons for Music and Language Arts Integration. Kendall Hunt Publishing. (25 amazing and inspired lessons thot promote the development of kil in both music and language arts.) ‘The Power of Purposeful Movement in the Classroom Setting ~ Meek/Nolen 10