Describing Our World

 In Lesson 5 we did deeper explorations with opposites -
Big/Small
Soft/Loud
Round/Straight
High/Low
Fast/Slow

This gets the students to exaggerate their movements and fully commit to their dances so they become even more interesting to watch!

1st graders explore moving large (above) and then doing a very small dance (right)

We also played with something new today - exploring objects and then making a list of words to describe them.  Then we picked the words that had the best movement potential from our descriptive list to explore through movement. 




Here are some of the words the Kindergarteners' class explored through movement:
Pointy, Sunny, Triangles, Circle.

 Here are some of the words the 1st Graders' class came up with to explore in movement:

Pointy
Dots
Flat (see picture left)
Sticky
Itchy
Smooth
Twirls
Stretchy
Clicks
Slides
Spikey
Rolly
Colorful

The skills exhibited in this exercise include both language skills (vocabulary and working with metaphor) and movement skills (improvisation, clear beginning and endings, physical control, expressiveness, and generally exercising their imaginations). 


In the picture to the right you see a variety of solutions to creating a dance about triangles.
In the picture below you see different solutions to creating pointy dances.

 
This is the next step in students creating their own dances (we put three descriptive words together to create a dance with 3 parts).  We hope to make the leap to the students working in small groups together to solve more movement problems like this. 







THINGS TO TRY AT HOME THIS WEEK:
Look around outside or in the house for objects to describe and make a list.  Then pick a few words from the list to explore with movement.  Remember to use all parts of the body in your movement and play with changing levels and speed.