Dance Room Happenings – 10/5/18

In dance this week, our youngest students are practicing locomotor and non-locomotor skills. And in first grade, students have started to explore the idea of levels. What happens to movement when we change levels? How do our bodies move on different levels? Can we create dances using different levels?

Second grade dancers continue working with the idea of building shapes and skylines. But this week, they are learning about transitions and how shapes can change from one to another with different kinds of movement in between. Third graders have been working with the letters and syllables in their names. Now they are thinking about the meaning of verbs and how our bodies can physicalize action words into movement sentences.

In fourth grade, students continue learning a new warm-up with several isolated foot and arm sequences involving rhythm. They are discussing the important elements of successful group work and then challenged to collaborate with various small group tasks. These dancers will be thinking about personal goals for the year. Fifth graders have been working in pairs to create a coin dance following a discussion about probability. Next week, they will continue their movement and math connections by working with dice and creating a chance dance.

Fifth grade dance elective students have established an isolations warm-up involving forward and backward sequences and continue to practice movement skills across the floor emphasizing rhythm and stage direction protocol. Next they will focus on how we move through space using locomotor actions as transitional movement. These students will be practicing various skills and questioning how different size spaces can affect movement. Sixth, seventh and eighth grade dance elective students continue to practice various technical skills and learn about body alignment. This week they are investigating the idea of shapes. The body is capable of creating many different lines including linear, curved, twisted, angular, symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. Our oldest dancers will be using these ideas as they create and show a map featuring all of these concepts.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Diane