Let's Move!

This past week, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students got their wiggles out with creative movement exercises. Due to our unexpected snow and ice days, students didn't always get recess and this makes movement day even better! (Sorry for the lack of pictures, but its hard to capture energetic bodies without a blur.)

1st grade students met Joseph Haydn and studied his Surprise Symphony. This was a great opportunity for us to review quarter and eighth note patterns as well as discuss dynamics of piano and forte. As students listened and identified the surprise, we brainstormed movements to help demonstrate forte and piano with our bodies. For piano movements, they came up with tiptoe, sneak, and creep. For forte, we used march, stomp, and jump. It was so much fun splitting up into dynamic groups and moving through space as we listened critically. Thanks to Cori Bloom over at Rhythm & Bloom  for coming up with such great listening and movement lessons!

2nd grade students kept with the winter listening and movement theme by getting to know Claude Debussy's The Snow is Dancing from the Children's Corner collection. It was so exciting to be able to teach this lesson on days when we actually had snow (which doesn't happen in Dallas!). Lessons are always better when we can pull in different subjects to create an integrated lesson and this was a perfect one to brainstorm action verbs to describe how the snow actually moves. We used some included movement words such as gliding, dropping, twirling and brainstormed to add waving, melting, and swaying. Watching the students dance through the space like little snowflakes was such a beautiful experience. As an ex-dancer, it is truly breathtaking to watch the unbridled creativity of a child's mind as they move. Again, thanks to Cori Bloom for creating this one too!

3rd grade students explored a folk dance to go with their sixteenth note study with the song Paw Paw Patch. This is such a fun song and lends itself to a great folk dance. I'm pretty sure my student's favorite move is "Peel the Banana" and not just for its silly name! Check out how much fun they're having below.

"Make a Bridge"

"Around and Thru!"