Time: 6-8 weeks
This unit focuses on encouraging students to explore a range of movement possibilities in preparation for their dance-making experiences. As well, the students' kinesthetic perceptions and abilities to repeat specific movements are developed. These movement explorations may then be incorporated into students' dance activities.
Sample Topic: "On the Spot and Through the Air"
Suggested Resources:
Starter List of Activities
Teacher Note:
The following Starter List of Activities is intended to aid the teacher in planning mini-units and/or units. It is not possible to engage students in all of these activities. Teachers need to choose (or develop their own) introductory activities, main activities, and concluding activities to support students in exploring Our Bodies in Motion. The activities in this starter list are described very briefly, and are just a sample of the many activities that can be developed to explore the theme or topic.
1. Introductory Activities
Ask the students to list things that move and stop. For example, a ball rolls and comes to a stop. Bicycles move and stop. Warm up by using verbal cues to have students explore different ways of moving and stopping to a lively beat. Discuss the meaning of “on the spot”. Have students explore ways of moving on the spot.
Blow up a balloon and then release it into the air. Talk about how the balloon grows or expands. Help students to develop vocabulary that is used during the dance-making process. Sit and share the new words. Put the words on the wall. Help students to build vocabulary charts. When the balloon is released, have the students describe the different pathways that it took during its flight. Was it straight up and down, or did it curve and spiral before falling?
Talk about different ways of moving through the air. Ask students to imagine a balloon's actions, dipping and swirling in slow motion. Encourage students to talk about the way that their movements make them feel. For example, “As you are still, how does that make you feel?” Motivate students to explore the range of each movement's potential with instructions such as, “Move as if you are moving slowly through the air…through water…or glue.”
Have the students move very slowly in patterns around the floor as if students are balloons moving through space. Have students slowly collapse onto the floor and freeze. Have them repeat the actions speeding up incrementally, being aware of personal space and careful to avoid other students.
Tell the students to think about the different pathways taken. Can students repeat the same pathway twice? Have students practise repeating a pathway without coming into contact with each other.
Have students think of other things that move in pathways through the air, such as birds or insects. Have students generate a list of words to describe birds in flight, such as swoop, dive, dart, or drop. Encourage students to explore some of these movement ideas.
Guide students to explore ways of moving different body parts through the air and on the spot. Students might windmill their arms, swing their legs, march, crouch, or wiggle on the spot. Have students try the movements at different speeds and on different levels. Teachers may want to introduce some of the new vocabulary through a story first.
2. Main Activities
Guide students to create their own dances using the movement vocabulary that was explored during the introductory activities. Reinforce vocabulary by weaving it in and out of the lesson.
Read with students some stories about hot air balloons such as “Balloon Science” by Etta Kaner, or “Sky High” and “Hot Air Balloons” by Anne Myers in the Grade 1 Cornerstones Series. Discuss how hot air balloons rest on the ground, rise up and travel, or float in various pathways through the air, sometimes seeming to stop suspended in stillness before moving on their journey.
Help students create a travelling and stopping dance. Ask them to brainstorm ways that people, animals, and objects can travel. For example, people might hike or fly in hot air balloons or planes, or animals and birds may stalk or migrate. Engage students in a conversation about different ways of stopping during travel. For example, a person may pause on a walk to eat an ice cream cone, migrating animals may curl up to rest, or birds may perch in the trees to preen their feathers. Encourage students to talk about how these various movements feel as students explore the movement potential of each idea.
Have the students generate their own dance ideas about travelling and stopping. Let students work individually or in pairs to freely explore some of their movement ideas.
After exploration, tell the students they are now going to create a dance called “On the Spot and Through the Air”. When creating their dances, the students may be cued with simple verbal instructions and a percussion instrument as students work through the dance ideas.
Ask each group to find clear starting positions for their first dance phrase. Have each student think about how his or her starting position is the same or different from the other dancers in the group. What would make their starting positions more interesting? Do the dancers want to start their dance in the same positions or in different positions? Do the dancers all want to be on the same level or on different levels?
After students have created two dance phrases, have students combine the two phrases. Provide time for students to practise the combination several times.
To a steady beat, have students repeat the travelling phrase and on-the-spot phrase two or three times to create a short dance. Ask the students to find interesting ways to end the dances with a clear ending position. Have each group practise their dance.
3. Concluding Activities
Ask if any students would like to show their dances to the other students. If so, ask the viewing students to describe the types of travelling and on-the-spot movements seen. Students may want to talk about how they felt when moving in particular ways. Teacher questioning may help students understand how their movements can have expression, and help to connect what the body is doing to the ideas students are trying to express.
Ask the students which movements made each dance interesting to watch. Ask the dancers to tell what parts of the dance they enjoyed the most and why.
Sample Topic: "Gesture – Hello, Goodbye"
Suggested Resources:
1. Introductory Activities
Discuss with students the meaning of the word “ gesture” . Have students demonstrate different gestures that people make when talking, greeting people, giving directions, showing surprise, signaling someone to stop, and other common activities.
Teacher Note:
It is important to remember that gestures are not universal. Different cultures have different gestures. One culture's gestures may mean something different in another culture.
Ask students to look for different gestures when students are observing people in the school hallway or on the street.
Have students gather pictures of different gestures (e.g., advertisements). Display the pictures and discuss the different gestures that appear in the pictures that the students have collected.
Select some of the gestures to explore through movement. Explore the gestures with different body parts, with different speeds and qualities, on different pathways, with the whole body, or upside down, as examples. Waving could be explored as a large sweeping movement done with a leg or the head. The movement could be repeated very quickly to become a vibratory movement. It could be done suddenly and then frozen in mid-air.
Ask the students to travel freely about the space. At the sound of the drum they stop and gesture in some way to the person closest to them. Have students try speeding up and inserting a different gesture each time they stop.
Divide the students into small groups. Have students form circles and then skip (or travel in another way) toward each other. Have students stop and create a gesture. Have them explore the gesture that they have chosen on the spot. On a drum cue, have students turn away and gesture as they skip (or travel) away. In their group, have students work with gestures using different variations.
2. Main Activities
Help students to develop a dance using their understanding of gestures and the movement vocabulary that students explored during the introductory activities.
Guide students in the creation of a “Hello, Goodbye” dance. Have students come up with different ways of gesturing hello, using their imaginations and different body parts.
As a whole group, have students move freely about the space until a drum cue informs them to stop and gesture hello to the person closest to them. Ask students to come up with funny ways of gesturing hello, such as saying hello with an ear, an elbow, or waving a knee. Students might shake each other's hands, shoulders, chins, or backs.
Have students move about the space and come up with funny ways to gesture goodbye. They could wave goodbye with their torsos, their legs, or their feet.
Tell students that they will be working with a partner to create a “Hello, Goodbye” dance that has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Guide the partners through the sequencing of their phrases to develop the dance.
3. Concluding Activities
Have two partners join two other partners. Ask the students to combine their “Hello, Goodbye” dances to create a new dance with four students. This could be repeated with groups of eight.
Have the groups demonstrate the dances to each other. Discuss what students observe. Have them note the different gestures.
View dance videos to discuss gestures that may be included in the dances.