Creative Dance Lesson Chelsea Alley and Mandy Devey Lesson References Dee Winterton Lesson Title: Moving

to Learn nd Age Range: 2 Grade Lesson Length: 30 min.

Lesson Concept: Listening to and following directions, committing to personal movement choices, falls Learning Outcome: By the end of this 30-minute lesson, students will be able to demonstrate that they are able to focus completely during the lesson, listen carefully to directions and be able to execute movement, commit completely to personal movement choices and demonstrate different types of falls. Equipment/Materials/Music: Drum/beater Procedures: Warm up with the snap signal exercise. Explore longer sequences. Introduce types of falls. Allow for performance opportunity. Behavior Expectations (rules): Be safe (shoes, boundaries of room, safe movement, etc.) Be respectful (to teacher, self, and others) Experience/Identify and Warm UpTime allotted (0:5)
Introduce the signal that students will follow. When I snap, stand up quickly, turn around in a circle, and sit back down. Try to trick the students by signaling instead with a Ready, go! Continue until all students can follow the directions and then increase the difficulty. The sequence will now go as follows: stand up quickly, turn in a crooked sort of circle, and sit back down. Let the students explore different ways to show crooked. (head, arm, waist, etc.) The next challenge will be to sit down slowly. Discuss for a moment what slowly means. Have the students hold their hands in front of their faces and move them so slowly they can barely see them move. Have them complete the sequence after the snap several times. After they all have gotten it, the foundation has been established. Deliver a longer, more complex sequence. Ask them to repeat and fill in the blanks before having them actually do it. Sequence: Stand up quickly, turn in a crooked circle, skip around the room until they find their own place, turn around three times, then fall slowly to the ground. Challenge the students to give their creative best skips, leaps, turns while skipping around the room, etc.

Explore/InvestigateTime allotted (0:10) The teacher will now introduce a second fall, a collapse. Ask the students what they think collapse means. Discuss how it is like releasing all energy at once, to fall to the ground loosely. Its just one moment Im standing here, and the next, you cant see me. Label the slow fall as Number 1 and the collapse as Number 2. Challenge the students to follow all the directions the teacher will call out. Proceed to give directions for short sequences such as stand up! Skip, Number 1! Jump up, turn around, Number 2! Jump up, Number 2! Jump up, Number 2! Make sure the students arent watching the teacher for cues, but that they are moving around the room and focused on the execution of the directions. Introduce a third type of fall an epic death fall. Let them try it two or three times. Create/PerformTime allotted (0:10) Return to the original sequence, and ask the students to perform it and choose the ending fall one, two, or three. Make sure the dancers stay committed to their choice even if someone beside them is doing a different

one, point out the ones that manage to stay focused and ask all the students to do the same. Talk about how often in life, we cant let ourselves be distracted by others around us, we have to stay committed to our own choices and following through to the end. Divide class in half. Have one half sit down and watch the other perform, then vice versa. The audience will be asked to look for committed movement, creative locomotion in the skip section, and identify the different falls shown at the end. Connect/Analyze and Cool DownTime allotted (0:5) Possible Questions: What is your favorite fall? How should we commit to the choices we make?

ACTIVITY & MUSIC SEQUENCE

Reminders: Behavior/Rules Experience/Identify and Warm-up: Explore/Investigate: Create/Perform: Connect/Analyze and Cool Down:

Concept #1

Concept #2