Mrs. Jenkin's Class Visit 16: Silly Valentine Letter

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, for this lesson I had the students fill in this silly Valentine letter

The student's absolutely loved it, and thought it was utterly hilarious! Once this silly letter was filled out we began dancing. This class has improved so much over the past few months, that it absolutely amazes me! They think about the different ways they can move, and they apply all the things they've learned such as levels, size, timing, and energy. They give suggestions on how they think we could move, or how we could make our movement more interesting. For example during one part of the poem  they wanted to make this awesome shape that used each other's positive and negative space. I never even taught them about positive and negative space! But here they are thinking and creating movement in new ways every time I see them. 

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 16: Love, Splat

Visit 16 took place on Valentine's Day, so what a perfect day to have a Valentine inspired lesson. We read the book "Love, Splat" by Rob Scotton. At the end of the book was a cute poem that Splat's crush had written him.

Inspired by this poem, I had the class come up with their very own Valentine's Day Poem, and here is what they created.

The Strong Hearted Lion

The strong hearted lion loved Valentine's Day, 

He liked to eat candy in every way. 

Upside down and right side up. 

Even eating like a pup!

Giving hearts to everyone, 

Valentine's Day is so much fun! 

Quite an impressive little poem! After we came up with the poem we spent the rest of class turning it into movement. Even though this poem had a couple of great movement potential words such as upside down and right side up, most of the poem required quite a bit of abstraction and creative thinking, but these 2nd graders continually impress me with what they come up with. My only wish at the end of the day was that we had more time to dance, it took us quite some time to come up with the poem. However, with the time we did have the student's did a great job in translating poetry into motion!

Visit 13-15: National Anthem Performance

The next three visits consisted of preparing for both Mrs. Condie's and Mrs. Jenkins' class to perform in a school assembly. They were going to dance the fourth verse of the National Anthem while the faculty sung. Once again this was an opportunity for the students to create and perform their own movement. The only part I created was their beginning and ending shape. (Which in all reality I just gave them specific criteria and they created their own ending shape) There were six groups and each group was given one line of the fourth verse to create their dance. It's so fun to see the difference in what they were creating during my first couple of visits, to what they were creating now for this performance.

I was so proud of what they came up with. Especially since there were some hard words in some of their lines. It was awesome to see that as they were doing their dance they created they were also singing the words. By creating a dance, they had inadvertently learned the fourth verse of the Star-Spangled Banner! I honestly didn't know the fourth verse until I was preparing for their lesson. Hopefully they will remember this verse for the rest of their lives, I know that I still remember songs I learned in elementary school.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

Santa's Stuck!!! Visits 8-12

The next four visits we combined both Mrs. Condie's and Mrs. Jenkins' Class to work on a Christmas performance. The students worked and practiced really hard to perform in front of all the 1st and 2nd grade classes. There dance was based off the book "Santa's Stuck" by Rhonda Gowler Greene. It's a story in which Santa eats way too many Christmas goodies and get's stuck on the way back up the chimney. It takes his reindeer, a mama cat and her six kittens, a dog, and one mouse with a tiny tractor to push Santa out of the chimney

The beginning of the dance was done all together and consisted of almost the entire first half of the book. However, for the last half of the book, the students were split into five groups. Each group was  given their very own page, and they had to create a dance that their group could do for that page. Mrs. Condie, Mrs. Jenkins and I went around and helped the students, but ultimately the students came up with it on their own. The very last part of the book was done all together.

 Once the students were done creating we began practicing doing the entire thing. The only difficult part was helping the students coordinate when their group entered and exited the space. However after a few tries they were able to master it. The performance was done on the schools stage in there gym. The students were so excited, and I had several come up to me to tell me how nervous they were. One even asked if they would get to wear a costume. After they were done performing I had a mom come up to me to tell her son had been talking about it non-stop for the last week.

This was definitely one of my favorite moments during my Arts Bridge experience. The students did such a good job creating their own movement and practicing the dance

Image: http://images.betterworldbooks.com/052/Santa-s-Stuck-9780525472926.jpg

Mrs. Condie's Class and Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 8: The First Thanksgiving

For my eighth visit I did the same lesson for both Mrs Condie's and Mrs. Jenkins' class, so I figured one blog post would suffice. This lesson was on November 22nd and since it was about a week before Thanksgiving the lesson was on the first Thanksgiving. I read to them a cute book called "Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving" by Kimberly and James Dean. The book essentially tells the story of the first Thanksgiving starting from when the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower until they share the first harvest with Squanto and the other Native Americans.

Since it was the eighth visit the students by now are pretty familiar with different dance terms. As they progress it's great to challenge them to find new ways to do things. Can they do the same thing on a different level? What about faster or slower? Bigger or smaller? Can you do it while twisting? What's great about the eighth visit is that they are starting to do these things on their own without me having to remind them. While they are dancing I can see different students making these different creative choices and that's always really rewarding.


Image: Page 11 of "Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving" by Kimberly and James Dean

Mrs. Jenkins Class Visit 7: Twas the Night Before Christmas

I did this lesson on November 15th, but one can never get in the Christmas Spirit too early! Mrs. Jenkins thought that it would be fun to explore movement based on the classic "Twas the Night Before Christmas". For a while we actually thought we would be doing a Christmas performance to this story but we ultimately decided on a different book (more on that to come!)

The students had a lot of fun reading this book and coming up with movement for the story. The story is longer so we only got to the part where he "tore open the window and threw up the sash". However, this allowed us to sufficiently explore the different possibilities for the parts of the story that we did get through. Mrs. Jenkins found a recorded reading of the story online and we played it as an accompaniment to the student's dancing.

On a different note... If you're wondering where the post for the 8th visit to Mrs. Condie's class is... so am I. I misplaced what I wrote down about that particular lesson, and the only note I can find says "Visit 7: Turkey". Since I have no recollection of what that means I can't really blog about it. But I'm sure it was a great lesson!

Mrs. Jenkins Class Visit 6: Starry Safari

Mrs. Jenkins class was learning about personal narratives and so for my dance lesson this visit I found a fun story that was told in the form of a personal narrative. The story we read was "Starry Safari" by Linda Ashman. It's a book about a little boy and his adventures while on a African safari, he sees herds of wild wildebeest and wallows in the mud with some hippos. This was a fun story and I really think the students enjoyed reading it and dancing it out. My only challenge with this lesson was in helping the students to move past pantomiming into more original movement. The differences comes in challenging the students to be like something rather than being something. There is a differences in moving tall and long like a giraffe rather than crawling around on all fours being a giraffe.  Overall the students did a great job in abstracting the movement and thinking creatively.

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 6: And It Was Still Hot

It was Mrs. Condie's class turn to experience one of my favorite lessons! This lesson is based of the book "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. Since I've already explained this lesson I'll spare those details, but you can check this post here for a little more information.

It's fun as a teacher to see the differences between classes when you do the same lesson. There are also always similarities. Some are amusing, for example, without fail whenever it comes to the part where Max tumbles by on the ocean, at least two students will start doing the worm and they will undoubtedly be boys.

Another thing I love about book lessons is that more often than not by the end of the lesson the students have essentially learned and remembered a short little dance. All I have to do is read the book, and they are able to dance and remember what comes next. I also love allowing the students to watch each other dance at the end. Not only do they watch each other, but I then give them an opportunity to raise their hand and tell me an observation, or if they saw something that they liked or something someone did well. It's a nice way for the students to not only encourage each other, but also practice connecting what we've done in class to their world, as well as practicing expressing it verbally.

 Image: http://www.gems6-2.com/images/p_33.jpg

Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 5: Adjectives

With this lesson Mrs. Jenkins gave me a list of adjectives that the students were learning. I talked about the definitions with the students and tried to give them ways to remember the words. Once we were done talking about the definitions we spent time exploring how we could dance each of these adjectives. Some of the adjectives were easier to dance than others but I think that in the end we were able to figure out together how each adjective could be turned into movement. Overall I think by dancing out the adjectives the students were able to better remember the differences between each adjective.

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 5: November

This dance lesson was all about the month November! For the first half of the lesson the students were paired in partnerships and we explored how we could create each letter using our bodies. The students particularly loved this activity and loved doing it with a partner. While creating each letter I challenged the students to make their letter different than everyone else, I didn't want to see anyone making the letter in the same way. I love giving this challenge because it helps prevent students simply copying each other, they instead have to really think and come up with their own way to do something.

After we were done spelling out November with our bodies we explored different aspects of the month through movement. We did everything ranging from falling leaves and cold frigid air, to blowing wind and crunchy crumbled leaves. After we had explored these as a group we played a quick dancing game. I divided the room into four sections and gave each section a criteria (for example one section would be the falling leaves and the adjacent section would be the blowing wind.) The students could dance from one area to the next, or they could to choose to be in the middle of two sections but they had to figure out how they could do both types of movements at the same time. I turned on some music and let the students have fun dancing from one section to the next.

Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 4: I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So!

One of my all time favorite creative dance lessons is based off of a favorite childhood book, "Where the Wild Things Are." by Maurice Sendak. I'd taught this lesson quite a few times while a member of BYU's outreach dance company Kinnect, so I was excited to share this with Mrs. Jenkins class. This book has such good imagery ranging from trees with swinging vines growing in Max's room and a tumbling ocean, to wild things with terribly sharp claws. It's such a perfect book for a dance lesson!

The lesson focuses on teaching students the difference between sharp and smooth. While reading the book, I ask the students to identify different things they see in the pictures that are smooth and sharp. When dancing I use these qualitative terms to guide their movements. I say things such as "can you grow smoothly?" or while they are showing me their terrible claws I ask them to use their whole bodies to show me their best sharp shape.

Using books to create dance lessons are my favorite because not only does it provide great imagery and vocabulary, but it also challenges the students creatively. How can they dance out the book without pantomiming the story? How can they use their entire body to express the story? It's a great way to challenge the student's to think abstractly and artistically.

http://www.muddyingthewaters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/where-the-wild-things-are-2.jpeg

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 4: A Complete Thought

For this lesson Mrs. Condie told me that some of her students were having a harder time understanding that a sentence creates a complete thought that ends in a period or other form of punctuation.  To begin the lesson we created a story as a class that I wrote on the board. (It was a week before Halloween, the story was appropriately about a hungry werewolf on a full moon.) While writing the story on the board I purposefully left out any form of punctuation or capitalization. These was so that we could add it in as a class afterwards. 

Once our story was created we started dancing out the story with a few stipulations. Ever time there was a period they had to freeze, and every time it was a new sentence their movement had to be as big as they could make it (to represent the capitalized letter.) Every time there was a comma they would have to take a audible breath while swinging their body from high to low. When the punctuation was a question mark they had to make a curved shape, and when it was an exclamation mark they had to jump. These requirements made it so that the students had to be aware of where the punctuation was within the story, and hopefully it helped them better understand the concept that a sentence is a complete thought. 

Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 3: The Five Sense

This lesson was on the five senses: sight, touch, taste, sound, and smell. At the beginning of the lesson we read a short book that identified and gave examples for each of the five senses. The rest of class was spent exploring these five sense and how they can influence our movement. If something feel smooth, how can you show that with your body? What about if it is sharp and pokey? How is that different? If something smells rotten would you want to jump around? Or would you slink around instead? There are so many different possibilities and it was a fun day to simply explore these different sense and how they can influence our movement quality.

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 3: Chunking Words

Chunking words is a reading strategy students can use when they come across an unfamiliar word that they are having a difficult time sounding out. The students essentially take the word and divide it into chunks that they recognize. For example the word information can be chunked into in-for-ma-tion.

For the lesson we came up with movement for each individual chunk. Let's use "information" as an example. Let's say we decide to jump and hit a sharp shape in the air on "in", then we melt to the floor on "for", then we hit a twisted shape on "ma", and then we swing a body part on "tion". We would then read the word once in chunks while doing the movements, and then we would read the word normally and the movements would have to flow together. So the first time the word is read the movement would go something along the lines of jump...melt...twist...swing... When read a second time the movements would turn into jump/melt/twist/swing with no pauses.

We did one word as a class, and then I divided them into small groups of four or five students. Each group had their own word that they had to chunk and create movement for. Each group was then given the opportunity to perform what they created.

Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 2: What They Think, Feel, Say, and Do

The curricular focus of my second visit to Mrs. Jenkins class was on characters. More specifically it was on what characters think, feel, say, and do. To begin class we read the book "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. This book is about a girl named Camilla who loves lima beans but she refuses to eat them because she simply wants to fit in. She wakes up one morning to discover that she is covered in stripes! Her condition only worsens and after the doctors fail to cure her she ends up covered in fungus, berries, crystals, feathers, and countless other things. Until she finally ends up morphing into the walls of her bedroom. She is finally cured when a little old lady comes over and gives her lima beans to eat. The story ends with Camilla proudly eating lima beans while sitting outside at school.

Not only did this book have great imagery that we used to explore different movement but it also allowed the students to think about and explore the motives behind the character Camilla. We talked about why she didn't want to eat lima beans, how she felt when she came to school covered in stripes, and why she no longer had a problem eating lima beans at the end. Though we explored different movement possibilities from the story, my favorite part of the lesson was something we did at the very beginning and then again at the very end. I divided the class in half and had one half be the dancers, and the other half be the watchers. When we did it the first time the watchers would close their eyes, and the dancers got to dance and move however they want. However, as soon as the watchers opened their eyes the dancers had to freeze. Each student had an opportunity to be both a dancer and a watcher. We connected this activity to Camilla and how though she loved lima beans, she wouldn't eat them because she wanted to fit in. When we did the activity again at the end of class, the dancer had to keep dancing even when the watchers opened their eyes. We connected this to how in the end Camilla decided that she didn't need to worry about fitting in and ate the lima beans simply because she wanted to. In the end this lesson not only focused on what character's think, feel, say, and do, but ended up turning into a lesson about how it is important to simply be yourself.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/A_Bad_Case_of_Stripes.jpg

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 2: The Vain Peacock

The focus of this lesson was character traits. We started off the lesson by reading a short story called "The Vain Peacock" and by identifying different characteristic of the peacock. The list mostly consisted of words such as vain, prideful, and big headed. We then spent the rest of the lesson turning the book into a dance that explored the book's imagery and vocabulary. Since the focus of the lesson was on character traits the student's explored different ways they could move like the peacock. By asking questions such as "how would you hold your head if you were prideful?" or "how can you walk around or dance vainly?" By asking these questions the students were able to come up with movement that was rich in quality and displayed different character traits.

Mrs. Condie used this same story later in the week for a different assignment, and I think that by exploring it through dance first the students were able to have a deeper understanding of some of the story's vocabulary. Overall I think the students simply enjoyed telling the story through movement!

http://amazingdesigns.com/swnpa135-peacock-embroidery-design

Mrs Jenkins' Class Visit 1: Counting On

This was my first visit with Mrs. Jenkins' first grade class at Sierra Bonita Elementary. The learning objective for this first lesson was to help the students learn a new math strategy called counting on. The idea behind counting on is taking the bigger number in an equation and then counting up from that number. For example, if you have the addition problem 4+2, instead of a student using their fingers to count "1,2,3,4...5.6", they simply start by saying "4" and then they can use their fingers to add "5,6". (By holding up two fingers they are also keeping track of how many they are adding.) 

When turning this into a dance lesson, we started off simple. For each addition problem I had the students clap their hands and then rub them together while saying "5+3 let's see...." We would then say the larger number while jumping out into a shape of their choice, and then to keep it simple, we would take as many steps as we had to count on. So in this case the students would jump out into their shape while saying "5" and they would then take three steps while saying "6,7,8". After talking the last step they would freeze and I would ask them "What's the answer?" and "8" would be their reply.

Once I felt like the students had mastered this we changed it up a bit to generate more creative movement. I would give them a task, such as instead of talking steps you have to create a different smooth shape for each number they add on. We continued to do the addition problems as a class but I let the students take turns coming up with the addition problem. At one point one student picked the problem 7+5, crossing the ten barrier is a big deal but the students did it without blinking an eye! It was at this point that I knew that the students had truly grasped the concept of counting on and that it was helping them with their math. 

Mrs. Condie's Class Visit 1: Re and Un

This was my first visit with Mrs. Condie's second grade class at Sierra Bonita Elementary. This first lesson was on the prefixes re and un. We began class by defining the term prefix. Most of the students understood that a prefix is a word that is added to the beginning of another word, and that it changes the original word's meaning. Once this was established, we talked about the definitions to the prefixes re (again) and un (not), and listed off some words with these prefixes that we were familiar with, such as rewrite, redo, undo, unwind, etc.

Next came the dancing! We stared out exploring different ways we could move our bodies, such as bending, twisting, curving, melting, jumping, etc. We then explored how adding these prefixes in front of our dance terms would change our movement. For example we would bend, then rebend by bending again in a new way, and then unbend by straightening. Some of these were easier to do, while others challenged the students to think about how the prefix could change the movement. An example of this is when we started exploring the word jump. Rejumping was fairly easy, but how exactly can you unjump? Remembering that un means not, one student suggested we could not jump by falling to the floor. So that is exactly what we did: Jump! Rejump! (jump again in a new and exciting way) Unjump! (by collapsing to the floor)

For the last activity I divided the class into small groups consisting of four or five students. Their challenge was to create their own short dance and then figure out how they could a undo the whole thing and then to redo it. Once their dances were created we had each group go one at a time to perform what they had created.

Overall it was a successful first class, the students had fun and I think the went away with a better understanding of the prefixes re and un.