Lesson 1:
Today was our first day at Hillcrest
School teaching our creative dance. The class is grade 3/4 with 23
students. One student was away so our partner work was perfectly paired.
For the students it was difficult to
mirror or copy their partners galloping movements. Each child was so
excited and wanted to do their own movement patterns so we found ourselves
really focusing in on having the students watch their partners and follow
their every move. They did really well with galloping and freezing to the
beat of the music and showed a lot of enthusiasm for the activity.
The space in the gym was not
utilized in the best possible manner. The students were sometimes crowding
each other and bumping into each other.
In our next lesson we will remind
them about using all of the space in the gym as well as work on body and
space awareness.
The progression of the dance and
introducing the music really worked to our benefit. We had the students
gallop on their own and then we paired them up and did some finger dancing
prior to dancing with the music. We noticed that they were really
concentrating during the finger dancing and were very aware of their
partners’ movements as well.
Today
we got through to the introduction of the sports that take place in the
Olympic games. We had time to experiment with the movements associated to
three of the sports and left the students with something to think about for
next class. We asked them to practice their galloping and think of what
sport they would compete in if they were in the Winter Olympics.
Lesson 2:
One week later, we taught our second dance lesson with the students at
Hillcrest. We were both surprised at how much the students remembered
from our last visit. They were even more enthusiastic about the dance
during this lesson.
We started with a warm-up activity where the students followed the lines
on the gym floor using different movements such as walking, skipping and
galloping. We encouraged them to move in different directions and
pathways. The reason we chose this warm-up was to reinforce and remind
students to always be aware of their own movements in the space. In
the first lesson we noticed that some of the students were so involved in
their own movements that they were colliding with each other. This
activity helped them develop their body and spatial awareness for the next
part of the dance.
Next, we reviewed the partner galloping sequence by first finger-dancing
to the music and then practicing with the music. We reminded students
to focus on copying the movements of their partners and emphasized the
freezing positions. We asked a few pairs to demonstrate for the class
because they were exhibiting good leading/following movements.
After that, we gave the students time to work with their partners to
develop a movement sequence for an Olympic Sport. Most students were
quick to choose a sport and began working on their sequence. Some
students required some prompting and guidance as to what particular sports
might look like. We noticed the students were highly engaged in this
task and it took a few moments for them to focus on the teacher when asked
to stop and listen for instructions. The students were very eager to
discuss and refine their sequences.
Due to time constraints, we found ourselves rushing to get the students
to complete their sequences so that they could perform for each other.
We would suggest to other teachers to allow the students a few gym periods
to develop and refine their movement sequence because they become so highly
engaged during this time. Also, the quality of the movement sequence
would likely improve dramatically if the students are given more time.
Despite being rushed through this section, the students did remarkably
well and were able to perform their sequences for each other. One
thing that really helped the students during the dance was providing verbal
cues and clapping out the beat.
We are very proud of the results of the lessons we taught and the
students must have enjoyed having us as guest teachers as well. The
class has asked us to come back to teach again so they can work on their
dance further. Their enthusiasm towards the dance is great to see and
we are both excited to go back to teach the rest of the dance.
