(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.