Snowmen

Once again, a joyful time spent with Mrs. Shank's first grade class!

I would like to share some of my favorite moments from the class.

1. We used the lines on the basketball court floor to help us with our pathways.  We learned a short combination and followed the lines around the space.  The kids enjoyed the visual pathway and challenge of jumping from line to line.  They also did a really good job at staying on the line and completing the task for each section.

2. We have explored many energy qualities in our dancing experiences together.  I brought objects each time to demonstrate these qualities.  To check for the kids understanding I asked them which qualities we had learned, and they remembered all of them! I was so excited! We then spent some time exploring these qualities once again as I played the drum.  It was beautiful to see them explore these ideas deeper and they made some very creative choices.

3. To conclude our time together we will be performing a dance for the student's parents in December as part of their Christmas program!  For this performance the student's will dance out the details of a storybook as I read it aloud.  The book is "Snowmen at Night."  This has been one of the funnest parts we have shared together as we have worked together to create this dance and reflect on all we have learned.

I am so proud of these sweet students and so grateful for their commitment and exploration. What an enriching experience it has been! :)

Short Sequences

During my fourth and fifth visits we have been adding to our list of energy qualities that we know!  These first graders are so smart and have remembered this vocabulary we have been learning. 

One activity we did was a short phrase across the floor.  Since we have learned so many different principles, I wanted to see how the kids did if we danced a short sequence.  The imagery for this one was fall leaves.  Across the floor we did 3 hops and then we imagined we jumped into a big piles of leaves and we through them in the air.  Then we skipped and slid.  To take it to the next level we even added counts to the phrase and the kids picked up well what movement you were supposed to do on which count.  I was really impressed and excited as they learned this phrase.

So we have added to our tree dance the energy qualities of stretch and swing.  So in this tree dance we do movement of sustain, sway, collapse, stretch and swing.

After we danced our tree dance a few times we performed for each other.  Before we did so we briefly went over a little performance ediquette.  We also talked about their peers performance a little bit.

I am excited to explore more imagery and ideas together as a class again soon!  These little movers are so creative and really good at following!

picture description: moment of us throwing the leaves in the air!