(3/29/13) - Our Last Day Together AND THE PERFORMANCE!

What a fun day today was!! I am so happy with the progress my students made. I was a little nervous today seeming since we just finished the dance last week and they were having a little bit of a difficult time remembering the whole dance then. But today, they surprised me. They hardly talked and they got right down to business. We ran through the dance a couple of times at the beginning to help them remember it. About half way through the class time, their first grade buddies arrived. They were all so cute! The 6th graders made sure that they were on their best behavior. It was so fun to see how fast my students quieted down. They all wanted to set a good example for the first graders. Once they got there, we began the performance. I was so impressed with one of my students. She was chosen by the teacher to tell the story of Helios the sun god to the first graders. She was so theatrical when she told the story. And she did it all by memory. That really impressed me. Once she told the story, we began the dance. All the little first graders had fun watching. When they finished the dance, I took over. I told the first graders a little bit about dance and how in dance in can tell a story. I showed them specific movement that they 6th graders did and explained to them what it meant. I showed them the chariot dance. I asked them what they liked about the dance. They all responded with great comments. Most of the things they liked about it were from the movement that the 6th graders created on their own. When we finished discussing the dance, we showed it one more time so they could pick out the story a little bit better in the dance. Overall, it was such a fun performance. I think it got the first graders excited to dance and it made the 6th graders excited to be able to show what they had been working on the last 5 weeks. HOW FUN! It was such a joy to work with this group of sixth graders. I loved every moment of it. If given the chance to do it again, I totally would hop on it! Favorite parts of the experience... 1)Seeing the students' minds light up when given the chance to create 2)Having the boys in the class be excited for Fridays because it was dance day with Mary 3)Creating lesson plans that fit the needs and interests of this age group 4)Being a teacher 5)Giving students the opportunity to move and explore with their bodies

(3/8/13-3/22/13) Continuing the Magic with Helios...

The last three lessons have been all pretty similar. We've been trying to put together our Helios dance for the final day that we have together. We invited their first grade buddies to come on that day and see a performance of their dance. We've finished the dance, now we are just trying to clean it for next week. It's been really fun to watch the students as they've worked together on this dance. I had them get into 4 groups one day and they all created a little bit of the dance on their own. That was really fun to see their brains run wild with this challenge. They all loved this part. That's something I've been really happy to see with this group is that they all are so excited to create their own movement and play around. I gave them a prompt from the story to help them in this process. Each group picked one thing in the story that happened as Phaoteon rode the chariot across the sky (ex: "The snake stirred, the bear awoke, the flames spread, the scorpions curled it's tail"). From these little phrases, they created 2 8 counts of their own movement in a group. We then added their finished pieces to the dance. This was probably my favorite part to see unfold. I wish I would have given them more opportunities to create. Or at least given them the opportunity to create a longer sequence. That's something I will remember for next time when I teach this age group. They enjoy creating. They enjoy creating more than improvisation though. When they are given a prompt of something to create, they take it away! These last three weeks have been really fun with my 6th graders. It's fun to see the magic unfold.

(3/1/13) - Evaluation Day and HELIOS!!

Today I was evaluated by my faculty mentor (Kathleen Sheffield) and arts bridge mentor (Douglas ?...sorry Douglas, I forgot your last name). I was pretty nervous actually! But it turned out to be my best teaching experience. They both said I was very confident and energetic. They could tell this rubbed off on the students. Kathleen also told me that I had handled a lot of the classroom management problems very well (ex: some kids making sarcastic comments and the talking going on). She pointed out how I didn't just let them get away with it, but I handled it enough to stop it from happening. That I was happy about since, the management issues were really what I was probably most nervous for at the beginning of my arts bridge experience. I warmed them up today with a new warm up. I'll probably just keep this one as a routine until the end of my time with them. The way I warmed them up was I put chairs in all the corners of the room. Each chair had a piece of paper on it with a locomotor step on it. They would do that locomotor step until they reached the next chair, where they would switch to the next locomotor step. I used leaping, rolling, sliding, and spinning. It got a little backed up at the rolling portion, so I think for next time I will switch out the rolling for another locomotor step like skipping or something like that. The bulk of my time with them, we reviewed what we learned last time. Then I read from the story with them about when Helios gave his son Phaoton advice when driving his chariot. The advice was to stay on the middle pathway and not to go too high or too low or else the sky or the earth would catch on fire. So I taught them an across the floor sequence that kept them in the the middle pathway. They couldn't divert from the pathyway and they couldn't go too high or too low. After we ran through it a couple of times in rows, our time was up. This definitely was my best teaching time! I'm really happy that Kathleen and Douglas chose to come today :)

(2/22/13) HELIOS, the sun God...

We've begun the integration!! Like I had said before, I wanted to start off teaching from the BEST model to kind of get the students more familiar with dance. Now it's time to begin the real stuff! They are ready to do this. Last year, Mrs. Lunt and her students were studying Greek mythology. This was perfect, since this was something I had been studying as well in my history of creativity class (I actually did a dance about Helios the sun God for my final project in that class). So we decided that this would be what we would integrate with dance. Today was the first lesson doing this, and it went great! We reviewed the story and then we immediately began into the lesson. I had them make circular shapes to represent the sun. And then they connected another circular shape with a partner. We did a little improvisation. I had them practice doing arching movement across the room to represent the sun rising and setting. I had them do it in all different ways...Ways that they never would think to do! It was really fun to watch. At the end, I taught them a sequence. This sequence we called the chariot dance. It was dance the represented riding the chariot that Helios rode across the sky to help the sun rise and set everyday. This sequence will be a regular occurrence throughout the dance when it's all done. After teaching them the sequence, we hooked everything together, and that was the first part of our dance! Overall, today was a success!! I have hardly no complained as far as classroom management has been going. My 6th graders are all pretty well behaved. They just talk a lot which is pretty typical of that age.

2/1/13 - ENERGY Qualities are the BEST!

I had such a fun day today with my students! I think they really liked the lesson today. We talked about energy qualities today...specifically percussive, sustained, and vibratory movement. The beginning of my lesson came from a fellow dance educator and friend of mine Esther Hopkin. They loved it...so thanks Esther! I had them all sit down in a circle and hold out their hand with their eyes closed. Then I put a chip in their hand and had them put it in their mouth without looking at what the item was. (BTW...this is a great lesson to do, but make sure that no student has allergic reactions to any foods before you give anything out. There were two kids who had allergic reactions to eggs and nuts. Luckily I checked with my teacher beforehand and found out these kids allergies, so I was able to find food items that they could eat.) When they put the chip in their mouth, they had to pay close attention to the texture, shape, quality, etc. of the chip. Next, I put a bite size milky way in their hand followed by them putting that in their mouth as well. Then I put pop rocks in their hand which they put it in their mouth. I did this activity to help them understand the different energy qualities. I chose the chip because it was sudden and sharp like percussive energy, I chose the milky way because it was smooth and ongoing like sustained energy, and I chose the pop rocks because they moved at a rapid pace like vibratory energy. I had them then get up and move in those energy qualities. For percussive I had them get with a partner and they did a poking activity. One partner was the poker and the other partner was the one who was being poked. Each time the person who was being poked was poked, they had to move that body part in a percussive way. Then we switched partners and did it again. Next, I had them pretend that they were moving through mud and everything around them was mud. This was a good visual to help them move in a sustained way. And then next for vibratory, I had them think of a dog when he got his belly scratched and his paw would move really fast. They pretended that they had an itch like that in one part of their body and then the itch moved to another part of their body and then the itch continued to travel through their body. This helped them visualize vibratory movement going through their body. By the time we finished that, our time was up. Time seems to be going a lot faster now, especially since I split the class in two groups. I think one reason why this lesson was so fun was because I really got down and danced with the students this time. It made it more enjoyable for the students to see me, their teacher, dancing. It motivated them and gave them more ideas of how they could move. It was really fun for me too!! I loved it! I think I've haven't been giving the students enough creative opportunities. I keep running out of time!! It's my fault. I would like them to start creating their own dances. Next time, I think we will jump straight into this. We will be implementing their curriculum next time. They've had the exposure to the dance concepts now from the last four lessons, now it's a good time to implement some of their curriculum while still implementing dance concepts. We will be working on Greek myths. I'm really excited! This should be a fun unit. We need to hop on our dance though so they have some good stuff to show at the end of my time with them. They really are a creative bunch!!

1/25/13 - A Continuation of SPACE

We continued our lesson on space today. We talked about body shapings (straight, bent, curved and twisted shapes). I showed them some pictures to help them get the idea of what these different shaped looked like. For a straight shape, I showed a stick bug, A bent shape I showed a geometrical piece of art, Curved I showed a beach ball, and twisted I showed a screw. I think that was helpful to have them understand the idea. But what was most helpful was when I taught them an actual sequence that used these body shapings. I found that they responded really well to learning a sequence that I taught them. They really enjoyed it and had fun learning an actual dance that I taught them. I think I'll continue teaching them new sequences, but also keeping that in balance with create activities. After I taught them the sequence, I had them get with a partner and they made a symmetrical, Asymmetrical, and Positive and Negative Shape with them. They had one set of 8 counts to get from one shape design to the next. This was their creative activity. I've hardly used activities where they've had to create some kind of movement and structure it into a dance. All the activities have mostly been improvisational. And you know what, they really REALLY liked it! It was so fun to see how proud they were to display their shapes that they made. I had them perform their whole dance for the class and they performed them loud and proud. Why have I been holding out on having them create dances?! I know it was always my intent to do this, but I think because my lessons went too long or I was trying to get a feel for how willing and abled these kids were with dance, I didn't really implement this as much. But they loved creating a finished project!!! It was fun to see how much they took to it. This is the joys of creativity!!!

January 18, 2013...SPACE

Today we talked about Space. The Lesson went as follows... Warm up: We did a mirroring activity. I turned on the music and let the mirroring being. I stood in the front of the room while the students tried to follow exactly what I was doing. They began to see that there were new interesting ways that they could move their body as they tried to mimic my movement. Recap From last time: I reminded them what we talked about last time (locomotor steps: Walk, run, hop, jump, skip AND moving many different kinds of body parts). Then I introduced them to the concept of SPACE, which was what we were going to be talking about. *I made sure that I established at this time a quiet cue which was when I smacked my drum that I brought 3 times. When I did this, all students were supposed to freeze in a shape. Explore Spacial Directions: I explained to them the different directions that they could go (forward, backward, sideways,up, down, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal) and then we played a magic string game. In the movement game, they were to pretend that I had a magic string and every time I called out a body part and a direction, they had to pretend that I was pulling them by that magic string by that body part. Locomotor Add on: I then did some across the floor work with them. I taught them three new locomotor steps (slide, gallop, and leap). The leaping was a little more difficult for those who had never danced before, but to those who had dance before, they loved the leaps. By the time that I did all that, we didn't have enough time to finish the rest of my lesson. I think I might have spent a little too much time on some activities. I split the group in half too so they could have more room to move, so that took double the time for the activities to happen since they had to both do the movement. Next lesson, I'll carry over my lesson and finish it. That's the good things about this program...you get to come back to the class and continue what you talked about last time. I think the lesson went well. They are ready to do some creative activities. I wished I could have gotten to that portion by the end of my lesson, but I didn't have enough time. Next time we will create a dance. My 6th graders are really great though! They are fun to work with and understand what I'm trying to teach them. They have fun with the activities, which I'm happy about. Marianne (Mrs. Lunt) told me today that yesterday she was taking the class to lunch and while in line for lunch she mentioned to the boys that it was going to be dance day the next day and one of the boys says, "Yessss, that was so much fun last time!" I'm really happy about that because I wasn't quite sure how the boys were going to take dance. But apparently they've enjoyed it thus far :)