Alphabet Dance

This past week was so fun dancing the alphabet with my Kindergarten students! The lesson I taught was inspired from a lesson Jana Shumway does. We first started by dancing to a fun alphabet song and connected with the previous class on shapes. We had to make the shapes of the letters with our bodies, it was challenging and fun! Then we dances Jana's alphabet dance. These are dance movements that start with each letter of the alphabet. It was fun to see the students move in new ways as well as recognize the locomotor steps they had learned in previous lessons. We then ended with making shapes and moving like words that started with different letters. Ex. "aaa... alligator! Can you make the shape of an alligator? Can you creep low like an alligator?" We did this with words I came up with and also with words the students came up with as well. Overall a very successful alphabet dance day!

Intro to SHAPES!

This past week we continued on with locomotor movement and added skip, gallop, and slide. We then talked about shapes and how we can make shapes with our bodies just like we can draw shapes with crayons. I first had the students identify 5 different shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and star) and identify what made each shape unique. Then they had to make each shape with their bodies. It was fun to challenge them to be more creative! Some did the shapes on different levels, made them with just their fingers or with their whole body. After that I had them travel through the space with the 8 locomotor steps we learned and when I said FREEZE they had to make the shape of what ever shape card I was holding up. It really challenged them to think quick and make creative choices. At the end we reflected on what our favorite shapes were and what things in everyday life have the same shapes (donuts, party hats, skyscrapers, starfish, dice, ect). One thing that I was really happy about was the autistic girl in our class participated so well and even raised her hand multiple times to give answers to my questions. I could really see the joy in her eyes that felt like dance was really helping her to better understand concepts and reflect on her own thoughts and feelings. YAY FOR DANCE!