Once upon a time, I was supposed to teach DANCE!

 A funny story...

Originally, my practicum was to be at an elementary school for the Arts where I was to teach rotary DANCE class! This did not end up working out as there was a conflict between an AT and a TC at that school and the principal made an executive decision to no longer host TCs at that school... However, I did have 4 full STEP days there where I watched and experienced many dance lessons and got to work one-on-one with the rotary dance teacher... I learned A LOT! I also felt that I had formed a pretty good bond with that teacher and had come up with a grade 5 dance lesson that I was very proud of... I have now begun teaching that lesson at my new school in Scarborough and I have kept in contact with my old AT (the dance teacher) who wants to continue to help me to implement these dance lessons!

Here is my first email to her... I can't wait to get her reply and see what she thinks! These will be 4 lessons in modern (interpretive) dance!

Hey M,

How are you? I hope everything is going really well for you...

Things are going quite well for me with my grade 5 class over at ___.

Today I did my first Dance class with them! I convinced my AT to let me do 4 Dance classes (replacing Gym classes), it didn't take much convincing at all and now the other Grade 5 teacher at the school wants me to do dance class with her class as well!

First we started with a basic stretching - you wouldn't believe that the kids complained during the most BASIC stretches! Then I played the drama game "atoms" with them so that we could form groups (there are 28 kids, so I wanted to have 7 groups of 4). First I separated the class into 4 groups of 7, and gave each person in each group one hieroglyphic symbol (4 in total). Then I had them group up with one of each symbol so that there were 7 groups of 4 - and 4 different symbols. Then we talked about hieroglyphics and the different ways that we could interpret symbols using our bodies. I had different children show the class different examples of how they could interpret a circle, squiggly line, spiral or arrow using movements. The examples they came up with were very good! Then we talked about associating the hieroglyphic symbols with a word and a sentence and how that sentence would be the foundation or "theme" of their dance. I showed them an example of a sentence with 4 hieroglyphics, my sentence was "Friendship makes the world go round": friendship: squiggly line, makes: the arrow, the world: the circle, go round: the spiral - I explained to them how I had interpreted each symbol. Then I had them make their sentences in their groups using the symbols - the sentences were to be about the theme of "friendship". I went around to each group to make sure that they were doing well and understanding the task. Most groups were very good! Some needed a little push and a couple ideas before they came up with something. At the end of class all the groups had come up with a sentence!

Next class we will begin our movement work... I would like to use "flocking" as an introduction to choreography... what do you think? I was thinking I could start with 4 random children and do a sort of introduction... Should I also introduce rhythm? Counting to 8? Most of the kids have never done any kind of dance before. I want to introduce to them Body, Energy, Space, Time, Relationship as well, I think I will do that with chart paper... What do you think?

Any input is greatly appreciated! Also, we could get together some time next week and talk about it... perhaps Monday after school? Or Tuesday? When is good for you? I could bring back your French book and the thing for that other teacher.

Let me know! Would love to see you!

Vivian