(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.