Elementary School Unit (Grade 3)

OUTLINE

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 1
1. Begin to revise and "script" story.
2. Students read "Turtle Knows Your Name" in SING IT TO THE SEA*
3. Students look at/think about the acrostic poems created at the beginning of the year.

* SING IT TO THE SEA is a third grade reader published by Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. The story, "Turtle Knows Your Name," is a West Indian folk tale retold and illustrated by Ashley Bryan.

LESSON 1 Content: Introduction to Dance elements, Name Movement/Name Dances

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 2

1. Create and practice the rhythm of the poem.

   UPSILIMANA TUMPALERADO
   That's my name.
   I took my time to learn it.
   Won't you do the same?

2. Students analyze the elements of the story.
   
3. Students begin to create shadows with adjectives, artifacts and drawings that describe them and could be used in the clarihews.

LESSON 2 Content: More in-depth experiences with Dance Elements

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 3

1. Recorder theme composed for the poem in Music.
   
2. Script is finished.
   
3. Students are placed in three groups.

LESSON 3 Content: Work in three groups on the Upsilimana Tumpalerado Dances to be accompanied by the recorder theme.

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 4

1. Students create and begin to memorize clarihews. Put on 3 x 5 cards for rehearsal.
   
2. Invite other 3rd grade classes to sharing.
   
3. Select students to play recorders.
   
4. Select narrators.

LESSON 4 Content: Upsilimana Tumpalerado Dances/recorder theme, brief review about using instruments for accompaniment, work in three groups in three spaces with a collection of instruments on Clarihew Dances

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 5

1. Write down instruments to be used by each group.
   
2. Organize instruments to be used by each group.
   
3. Narrators practice with script.

LESSON 5 Content: Continue working on Clarihew Dances, share and discuss

PREPARATION FOR LESSON 6

1. Work with narrators and script.
   
2. Organize instruments to be used by each group and recorder players.
   
3. Narrators practice with script.

LESSSON 6 Content: Coordinate narration, Upsilimana Tumpalerado Dances with recorders and three groups of Name Dances

PREPARATION FOR SHARING

1. Put shadows up on wall of Art/Science lab.
2. Organize instruments to be used by each group and recorder players. Set up early if possible.
3. Make sure scripts are available for narrators.

SHARING

INTEGRATED ARTS STANDARDS ADDRESSED*

CREATING ARTS

• Recognize arts elements in their own work
  
• Identify and use basic art elements and learn new elements
  
• Demonstrate personal, social, and physical skills to perform, improvise, and create art
  
• Perform dances that demonstrate introductory technical skill (4th grade)
  
• Improvise, in the classroom, simple dance movement
  
• Create, using media and techniques, appropriate to the art form, to express themselves

ART AS INQUIRY

• Describe the interactive role of the artist and the audience in the communication of ideas, feelings, experiences, and stories
• Describe and analyze the basic arts elements in their own work and what they saw and heard in the creations and performances of others, to explain what is communicated to them
• Express personal reactions to art works

* Notes:

1. Unless otherwise indicated, the objects are taken from the Integrated Arts Standards Grades 1-3
   
2. The standards that will be addressed in the project are indicated. It is assumed that the lessons will promote varying degrees of understanding and not necessarily mastery of the skills.

DANCE LESSON 1

EXPECTATIONS FOR LEARNING BASED ON THE STANDARDS

Students will:

• explore and use the dance elements
  
• create movement themes based on personal themes and ideas
  
• work in groups to create brief dance studies
  
• experience the role of the audience/observer
  
• experience the role of the critic

MATERIALS

• CDs or cassette tapes for warm-up
  
• CD or cassette player
  
• drum and mallet
  
• charts of Dance Elements

VOCABULARY

• personal space
  
• general space
  
• locomotor/non-locomotor or axial movement
  
• body parts
  
• space
  
• levels
  
• size
  
• shape
  
• improvisation
  
• choreography

WARM-UP (10 minutes)

1. Isolation warm-up-Students form a circle. Each person is responsible for moving/warming up one part of the body (e.g. circle head, shrug shoulders, rotate ankles, shake leg). Music can be used as background or this can be done in silence.
   
2. Wiggle and Shake--Begin balancing on bottoms with legs and arms in the air. Each section is performed for 8 counts. Extension: Teacher accompanies first on drum; children accompany later.

   wiggle and shake
   slap and tap
   body parts circle (e.g. head, shoulder, wrist)
   stand up and run in place (change size-use big steps, use small steps)
   freeze in a shape, change levels, change size of shape
   melt

EXPLORATION (25 minutes)

1. Define locomotor movement as movement that travels through general space. Ask for demonstrations of locomotor movement-students can refer to the dance chart. Students explore movements. Stop and start can be signaled by the drum. Be sure to cover the basic movements (walk, run, hop, jump, skip, leap, gallop, slide) but encourage other responses as well. Extension: Ask them to show how they can travel on something other than two feet.
2. Define non-locomotor or axial movement as movement that occurs in the area around the body called personal space. Ask a student to choose a movement from the chart and demonstrate it. Ask students to keep the same axial movement but change the body part that is performing it. Use this process with 8-10 movements listed on the dance chart. Extension: locomotor and axial movement can be combined. Try a hop that stays in personal space, a kick that travels.
3. Melt and Rise-Melt in 8 counts. Rise in 8 counts. Repeat 4 counts in each direction, 2 counts in each direction and 1 count 3 times to end on the floor. Extension: Choose two other axial movements and repeat the pattern.
4. 1-10. Demonstrate this activity that requires students to work in pairs. The first person makes a shape and says "1." The second person makes a shape and says "2." The first person makes a shape and says"3." The second person makes a shape and says "4." This continues until students reach "10." This can be used just as a basic exercise for making shapes and can also be used to show shapes that are the same, similar and different. Divide the group in half and have groups watch each other and discuss what they saw. Talk about the respective roles of audience and performer and the expectations they might have of each. Extension: Ask students to concentrate not only on the shape they are making but on how they get from one shape to the next. Do they travel through space? If so how?

CREATION (20 minutes)

Name Dance-Sitting in a circle, talk about the story "Turtle Knows Your Name" and how the little boy's name was so important to him. Tell them their names are important too and ask them to think of a movement that goes with their name. Go around the circle and see each one. After each person performs their name movement, the entire class performs it. After each person has done their movement, divide students into groups of 5-7. Each person is to teach his or her movement to the group. The group will then decide how they will use the name movements to introduce the group to the rest of the class in a brief name dance. Share the name dances and discuss each in terms of the dance elements.

CLOSING (5 minutes)

1. Repeat Melt and Rise
2. Sitting, review the terms introduced in the lesson. Introduce the concepts of improvisation and choreography. Dismiss students by asking each one to demonstrate either an axial movement or make a shape and then use a locomotor movement to travel to the door to form a line.