Dance EARL

                Dance, in many forms, has always been an Art expression that I have enjoyed participating and observing in. Because of this I chose to look up the standards on Dance. The standards were broken up in multiple sections by grade. Between Kindergarten and Third grade students use dance to explore, recognize, and begin to apply the elements of dance: space, time, energy/force, choreography and composition, and foundation of dance. Teachers incorporate these elements by having students participate in dance games, play, circle dances, creative movement, and traditional folk and cultural dances. As students move to the upper Elementary grades, middle school, and high school  level they begin engaging in improvisation and using their own creativity. Students also further their knowledge of dance elements by learning the principles of choreography/composition and gaining understanding of their skills as performers and active audience members.

                Immediately,  as I opened the GLE's for Dance at the 1st grade level, noticed that students are expected to gain an understanding and application the concepts and vocabulary of dance. GLE 1.1.1 states that students will recognize, understand, and apply the element of space and the vocabulary of dance by demonstrating: movement in different directions, variety of levels, using the whole body to make shapes, and recognizes and identifies personal and general space (just to name a few).  GLE 1.1.2 also requires students to demonstrate fast and slow movement and repetition of patterns they hear. These standards were perfect examples of activities that could be used in a Math lesson. In the first grade, students spend a great deal of time learning number patterns, color patters, sound patterns, directions, and properties of space. Incorporating movement in the way of dance greatly helps students to retain the memory of these patterns.

                A standard that I felt could stand on its own or within another content area (or in an of an area of its own) are the EARL 4 as a whole. This sections calls for students to make connections within and across the arts to other disciplines, life, cultures, and work. The standards written here, I felt as though they satisfied the targets that would/could be focused on in a Social Studies curriculum.  I was surprised that the standards fit so nicely in appealing and learning about varies cultures and was pleased that teachers are required to extent an understanding of other cultures through cultural dances and vocabulary from other cultures.

                When I have my own classroom I plan on incorporating dance as often as I can. It will actually be somewhat of a project for me when it comes to helping students who do not naturally enjoy dancing. I think dance would be fun to incorporate into lessons in all content areas. When teaching Math, students could use their bodies to create shapes, create musical and/or numerical patterns, and  represent mathematical equations and operations. In a science lesson I could encourage students to create small dance movements to recall and retain science vocabulary using various levels and motions. It seems that the opportunity to use dance in the classroom could be endless. To top it all off, I believe that incorporating dance helps students in being less likely to present behavior problems because they will not be stuck in a traditional learning setting all day!

Effective Lesson

"What does an effective lesson look like in your classroom"?

My classroom is not a quite classroom but in my opinion this is a good thing! The chatter you will notice is just a reflection of my students showing engagement and the ability to learn from each other. Throughout each lesson I do my best to incorporate Art, Music, and/or Movement. This is a great way for my students to work to together and make the material purposeful and meaningful. Incorporating these aspects also allows for the create lessons to appeal to the learning styles of all my students and appeal to the multiple intelligences presented in my students. With each lesson we discuss what it is the students are to learn (target) and how that target will assist us in our learning. After the lesson the students are also encouraged to not only discuss the lesson but to give me feedback as to what they felt worked best for themselves and the class as a whole. They share what they thought we did well and what we need to work on. When my student engage with each other through Art, Music, and Movement, I believe they are making the most of the lesson. :)

Resources for Art Integration

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-resources-lesson-plans#graph3

https://www.khanacademy.org/welcome

Music, Art, and Movement Lessons

Hello All!

Here are the links to my Music, Art, and Movement mini-lessons.

Art: Color Art
Movement: Function Charades
Music: Writing to the Sound of Music


Enjoy!

Let's Move! Active Schools

Grants are a great way for teachers to access funding to allow them to provide dynamic learning opportunities for their students that they may not be able to fund for themselves or through building resources. Gaining funding through grants helps teachers to bring more creativity to their classrooms without having to scramble or modify activities due to lack of materials. If there were less restrictions on funding, students would have endless avenues for expressing themselves and their learning than the standard activities used in many buildings.

 

Let's Move, Active Schools  is a grant that provides funding to help schools incorporate more physical activity into their building. Let's Move supports that notion that active kids do better; they have better academic performance, better school attendance, and better behavior and concentration in class. According to this organization, an active school should incorporate physical activity before, during, and after school for at least 60 minutes every day.  They believe that the best way to achieve school wide change is by: providing high quality physical education, creating active classrooms, having students begin and end their day with physical activity, emphasize physical activity for all staff, and connect the community.

 

This organization offers multiple grants that would help to reinforce the value of physical activity in the schools. This grant allows any school in the country to apply as long as there are grants available. Currently, as it is the end of the year, there are no grants showing for the schools in the North Thurston School District that are registered with the organization.  This website does not make it easy to learn about the requirements in applying for the grants. However, there are a lot of useful suggestions for ways in which schools can make the push to developing more active schools and free professional development.

Let's Save Music Programs

To Whom it May Concern,

Thank you for taking the time to hear why I believe we should fight to keep the Music Program thriving in the schools. Music is important to all students, staff, and community people; therefore it should not be cut due to budget issues.

 Music has the power to encourage and empower students physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and intellectually. Musical learning and performance teaches students to have self-discipline, dedication, teamwork, knowledge, self-confidence, and humility (Petress, 2005 pg. 112); all of which are imperative skills for students to learn to be a contributing member to society and the classroom. Ken Petress (2005)  states, " that music takes self discipline because one needs to learn to practice, take instruction, and criticism, and to perform whether solo or as a member; dedication, musicians learn to take the necessary time to learn and perform music; teamwork, musicians have to work as a team for their performance to be appreciated and valued; knowledge, studying music demands that one learn some level of theory, history, and cultural sensitivity; and confidence, being able to perform musically to entertain audiences and to understand and follow a composers intentions". All of these skills that  a Music Education offers students, carries out into their abilities to build in the general education classroom.

Music improves students brain development and enhances skills in all other areas. By making music we are strengthening the human brain. Making music targets the sensory and perpetual systems: auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic, the cognitive: symbolic, linguistic, and reading, planning movements: fine and gross muscle action and coordination, feedback and evaluation of actions, learning memory, and motivation (pleasure) (Weinberger, 1998, pg. 38). By learning music, students have the opportunity to engage all senses at once. Also, studies have shown that when students receive instruction in music listening, reading scores increased compared to those who did not receive training (Weinberger, 1998, pg. 38).

If these facts are not enough to convince the board the we should not cut funding for the Music Programs in our schools, let us not forget the obvious. Students love music. A world without music is dull and unexciting. Music surrounds these children in their everyday lives and rather than removing it from schools, we should be embracing it. Lastly, MUSIC IS FUN!

 

Thank you for your time,

Tanya

 

Petress, K. (2005). The Importance of Music Education. Music Education, 126(1), 112-117. Retrieved        from http://fac.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/FAC.teachers.ab.ca/Advocacy          Articles/6.pdf

Weinberger, N. (1998). The Music in Our Minds. Educational Leadership.

Teaching Channel

                This was the first time I had ever been on this website or even heard of it! In the last 7 months I have learned that there are so many more resources for teachers to be inspired by each other than I had thought. It is exciting and a bit overwhelming; just because there is SO much out there. As I was trying to decide which videos I was going to watch I could not help by gravitate to the videos that incorporated dance and movement. This is probably because dancing has always been something I have enjoyed since I was a little girl. The videos I watched were: Exploring Dance: Movement, Space, Poetry, Moving to the Beat: Many ways to Teach Rhythm, Elements of Art: Color, Space, and Texture, and Combining Academics and Dance with 4 Basic Moves.

                Throughout these videos (with the exception of Elements of Art), there is a common theme and understanding that acknowledges the value of incorporating dance in all areas of the curriculum. The video, Exploring Dance (2014) was the video I enjoyed most. The teacher discusses the importance of teaching students about positive and negative space and isolating body parts while traveling around the room and connecting with partners. Using poetry the teacher helps the students learn the vocabulary related to their various body parts and the importance of each part. The teacher encouraged the students to create their own motions to go alone with each line of the poem to help student retain the information. By doing this students will more likely be able to recall the information learned by remembering what they did with their body for each vocabulary word. He completes assessment of activities like this through journals, allowing students to co-create the expected criteria, observation, and by providing rubrics.

                Moving to the Beat (2014) combines words, movement and the use of instruments into everyday lessons. This approach allows for all students (especially ELL students) to understand the sound of English words and tie them to movement. By using song and movement to learn words, students can hear the inflection of the words helping them to see and hear the patterns. Combining Academics and Dance with 4 Basic Moves (2013) focused on the use of 4 simple motions: pin, ball, wall, and twist; all of which could be displayed with the use of just one body. In this video the students manipulate their bodies to represent stages of growth (Science) of a plant using these 4 basic moves. The teacher reports that when students apply motions to the stages, they were more engaged with learning even after the "dance lesson".  Lastly, Elements of Color , felt more like a reminder more than anything else. This teacher reiterates the importance of using art in the classroom. She enforced the idea of bringing art from all around the world into the class and engaging in discussion about the art with the students. She says that students are usually very engaged with learning about arts in all forms and from all places. As the video follows her in the lesson, I was reminded of the importance of modeling everything to students, because as this teacher mentions, some students do not retain information simply by hearing, but by seeing and doing. I will definitely look to this website again for more ideas.

Combine Academics and Dance with 4 Basic Moves. (2013). Retrieved May 24, 2015, from                 https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/reinforcing-concepts-with-dance

Exploring Dance: Movement, Space & Poetry. (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2015, from                 https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/elementary-school-dance-curriculum

Moving to the Beat: Many Ways to Teach Rhythm. (2014). (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2015, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/elementary-music-teaching-techniques

Elements of Art: Color, Space, and Texture. Retrieved May 24, 2015, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/elements-of-art-lesson