Fantasy as cultural context (VELS 3 & 4)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE!!!

This lesson was super fun and the one I think I enjoyed the most. The beginning of this class we were looking at our names, how could we change our names into a monster name, I came up with NEJ instead of Jen. We then had to come up with an action that went without new monster name; I put my hand on my head and made like a spiky feathered top for my monster. using this action and name we went around the tables to hear what others had come up with, this was helpful as I relaxed and knew that everyone was doing what I was doing so I didn’t have to feel silly. We then create a song within our tables, mixing the names and gestures up whilst keeping the beat and rhythm. I really enjoyed this activity

In groups we came up with a monster dance, when choreographing the dance we needed to take into account, the use of lines, floor space, height levels, and keeping the instructions simple as not everyone is a confident dancer. We used out monster names and gestures in the dance, which I loved as it gave everyone a sense of identity and belonging in the group. Here is the video of our monster dance!

The second part of this lesson was looking at the fantasy story of where the wild things are. In our same groups, the class was divided up and given a script with a part of the story. In our story their needed to be a narrator the rest of the group were acting. I really enjoyed this story as a child so I loved acting out our part of the script! Our group was pleased with the advice Jackie gave us, she helped up to visually show the story better. For example, the scene where max is on the boat, Jackie helped our group explore the ways we could best show a rocky, rickety old boat. When developing our performance we needed to take into account, the use of our script, the different characters points of view, still images and tableaux.

Below is the video of our groups part of the story and below that is the link to the whole class wild rumpus! 

 

It was great to see our whole class come together with a fantastic performance.

Whole class WILD RUMPUS!

Below is the peer assesment sheet

The Body as the Instrument of Expression (VELS 2 & 3)

This lesson I was away so I have created a lesson plan on Using the dance space!

Lesson Plan Dance

Topic and Focus :The Arts - Dance

Year Level:  grade 2 & 3

Duration: 1.5 hours

AusVELS Strands Level: 2 & 3

Domain: The Arts

Dimension:  Creating and Making

Learning Focus: Using the Space: spatial awareness  

Key Elements of standards to which lesson focussed:

-       selection of movements and/or actions to enhance expressive qualities of own dance, drama or music works.

-       use of arts language in discussion about why they and others have chosen to arrange aspects of arts works in particular ways

Student background knowledge:

Students have been learning about how to move their bodies into different shapes and sizes. The focus has been on the movement of their bodies. They are aware how their own bodies moves and bends into different shapes.

Resources and materials required:

·         ipads with appropriate playlist songs

·         masking/gaffa tape

·         Colored scarves

·          

Lesson Format

INTRODUCTION:

Warm up: As students enter the classroom have a range of different music on, for the first five minutes students can free dance to how the music makes them feel. The music will range from pop, rock, classical etc.

Introducing the theme:  Discuss with the students the idea of the dance space that we have, our classroom is the dance space, discuss the size, the height etc.

BODY of LESSON

Give all students a coloured scarf, the students are to use the scarf as there personal space, where ever there scarf is they are allowed to go. For example if you have the scarf close to your body, no one else would come able to come to close, the scarf is like the barrier for others to know how far they can come to you.

Put on the same music they were dancing to before, let the students dance with scarfs, creating barriers from other students.

Discuss if this was easier or harder then when they first danced to the music at the beginning of lesson.

ACTIVITY:

In pairs the students will choreograph a dance that uses a taped off space on the floor,

*you will need to tape off different shapes on the floor for the students to work with e.g triangles, squares, circles, hexagon.

Students are not to go outside the taped shape! Students are able to pick the song they wish to dance to, songs are available on a playlist on the iPads.

CONCLUSION:

Students will perform the dance to the rest of the class!

Students will give creative feedback

References

Deakin University, 2013, Teaching the Arts in Primary Schools: Dance and Drama Workshops, Deakin University, Geelong. 

State Government of Victoria 2013, AusVELS, State Government of Victoria, retrieved 3 June 2013, < http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/>.

Animals and the Origins of Dance/Drama (VELS 1 & 2)

This week was my first dance/drama lesson. I was a little bit nervous as I’m not really a dancing and I’m always the slow person at the back that looks lost! I was hoping there wouldn’t be any in front of class performances.
In this lesson we looked at creating a story using our bodies, and thinking about how to move if we were animals.
We explored the locomotive movement and non locomotive movements. we started by sitting in a circle playing a follow the leader type game with hand gestures and sounds, this was the example of non locomotive movements, we then stood up and moved around the room following the leader in actions and movements, we then all came together in a big snake like line, we had scarves that we used as props. This activity was fun, although I found it went a little bit too long as I started to lose interest.
We then learnt the kingfisher boogie that had great actions and was heaps of fun, I enjoyed the background to why Jackie created the dance, and once I knew the meaning behind the dance it gave me a greater appreciation of the dance and song.

Below is a video of the dance we learnt in the first lesson, as you can I struggled with the choreography! It’s all about having a go and having no fear! I’m not a professional dancer being judged on my performance. 

 

Reflection: How would use what I learnt in class. 

Today's class was heaps of fun and had lots and lots of movement. I was thinking as we were doing the snake follow the leader game, that I could use this in a literacy class for junior school students, say they had to do a descriptive piece on a particular animal. The beginning of the lesson could be about exploring the movements of the animals, they could then write from their experience.  

The Second part of the lesson was creating a story about what happened at the waterhole. I loved this activity! My group was great they were all willing to participate and we had a lot of fun being animal characters and taking on the persona of the animals. As you can see below, I was a fish! I loved the free flowing movement I had to create; I imagined I was actually in the water hole. I also imagined I was a cheeky fish, that loved jumping and splashing other animals. My costume inspiration was from the story "the rainbow fish" my costume was rough and made on the spot, I still enjoyed it though and it helped me feel more like a fish then myself!

 


Below is the video link for our story! As I said before this was a super fun activity that our group enjoyed so much! 

WATER HOLE STORY LINK

Here is a picture of our class peer assesed performance! we were happy with our feedback!

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan Dance

Topic and Focus :The Arts - Dance

Year Level:  grade 1

Duration: 1.5 hours

AusVELS Strands Level: level One

Domain: The Arts

Dimension:  Creating and Making

Learning Focus: To understand the difference between locomotive and non locomotive movements.

Key Elements of standards to which lesson focussed:

-       selection of movements and/or actions to enhance expressive qualities of own dance, drama or music works.

-       use of arts language in discussion about why they and others have chosen to arrange aspects of arts works in particular ways

Student background knowledge:

Students have been learning about how to move their bodies into different shapes and sizes. The focus has been on the movement of their bodies. They are aware how their own bodies moves and bends into different shapes.

Resources and materials required:

You tube : Interactive white board

Paper gray lead pencils

Lesson Format

INTRODUCTION:

Play a warm up game foxes and rabbits. The children are rabbits and there is a fox chasing them, to be safe from the fox they must be in a burrow. A burrow is a pair of rabbits, once there is three the rabbit on the end must leave and is fair game for the fox, until the rabbit makes it to the next burrow. This is just a fun energetic game to warm the students up. The game will warm up the student’s body, minds emotions and social awareness.

Introducing the theme:

Put a range of music tracks and get the students to dance the way the music makes them feel, the first two songs the students can do whatever they like, the third song they must stay stationary and only use hands and legs, the fourth song the students are able to move around again. Then explain that when we dance and move around the room for the three songs that is what we call locomotive movement and when we sat on the floor and only used out hands and feet that was called non locomotive movement.

BODY of LESSON

Show students video clips on locomotive and non locomotive movements

Video clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWWZwxZ49pk

Discuss what the students saw in the video clips.

Get students to sit in a circle, ask students to create a new name for themselves this will be there “beat name”. To create the beat name by taking the first three letters of their name and the first three letters of their last name as they are in grade 1 they will need to write this down, have paper and gray leads available for the students in the circle.

Once every student has their beat name, go around the circle to hear all the new beat names.

Then using only hands, clapping , slapping , tapping etc  begin creating a beat in a follow the leader type style, once the students have grasped that beat divide the circle in half and get the one half doing a different beat and using different movements. When the group has a nice groove going ask three students to incorporate their beat name like lyrics to a song.

Divide the students into groups of four to complete the following task

In groups of four students must create a locomotive and non locomotive dance / song to perform in front of class. The students can only ever have 2 students doing locomotive moments at one time, the other students can be doing non locomotive moments, all students must participate in performance and students must include all 4 students beat names at some time in the routine.

Give students time to complete task, roam around room making sure students are on task, all criteria are in performance and everyone is participating.

Students then perform routines to classmates – classmates giving constructive feedback and always encouraging advice.

CONCLUSION:

Recap the main focus of lesson: Locomotive and non locomotive movements

End with questioning – what type or movement do you prefer and why?

References

Deakin University, 2013, Teaching the Arts in Primary Schools: Dance and Drama Workshops, Deakin University, Geelong. 

State Government of Victoria 2013, AusVELS, State Government of Victoria, retrieved 3 June 2013, < http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/>.

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWWZwxZ49pk