DANCE REFLECTION

WHAT: Dance/Movement with Elementary Students

So WHAT: I had a great time with this unit. I LOVED the lesson guidance last week. I would have NEVER thought to use dance for a book read. What a great concept. In the reading, I enjoyed the information on "dance being a powerful cross-curricular learning tool". I'll quote the author when he said, "as students learn dance elements they are analyzing and categorizing their own thinking". So, it will strengthen their language acquisition and writing abilities as well.

Now What: I'm going to start choosing picture books differently for my future classroom so that when it comes time to "dance" our way through a book, I'll have good resources from which to choose. Again, thank you for great instruction. I will remember to talk about space and body and time and energy with my students as well.

Processed Drama

I have never taken a drama class or anything so this was a very fun project for me. Though, I'm clearly not a professional--it was fun to try and think up ways to enhance the story dramatically.

We chose to use the book, The Quiltmaker's Gift. It is a beautiful story and it lent itself well to portraying it dramatically. We had looked at three different books, but decided that this one could be the most easily done in this lesson format.

So, we all picked the pages that we wanted to be in charge of and read through the 21 hot topics and came up with some great ideas. The aspect of our lesson that I thought came across well was the use of music to set the tone and also the props that we used throughout. We would have to change some things up if we were actually using this lesson in our own classroom because in your class, we used all of us and as a teacher, we would be on our own.

Now, I am positive that my future classroom will use processed drama as a learning tool. There are many children who do not enjoy reading--sad, but true! But, what a great way to get them thinking about the story and seeing it come to life. My husband will often have our kids role play during our family home evening lessons. We find that having them act it out is a great way to retain the information we are trying to teach.

I'm enjoying this class and appreciate all the time you put in to your lessons.