Week Two

Week two focused on teaching science through dance elements and ensuring that students were able to assess ways in which plants have an impact on society and the environment, and ways in which human activity has an impact on plants and plant habitats.

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Students are asked to share a texture of something in the environment and create a dance like the image or artifact they think of. For example, sticky like a maple tree, windy like leaves, fuzzy like a caterpillar. You can use this across curricula. Once all of the student have chosen a texture, they were instructed to dance like that object. Once all of the students dance, the floor was opened for discussion and we talked about how each movement was different and how it would allow students to connect their bodies to nature.

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The book Bees by Kari-Lynn Winters was introduced to the class. As a group we learned the bee life cycle, how they collect pollen and the entire pollination process. Once we activated our schema about bee's we were then asked for some volunteers to represent bees, flowers and pollen. Through a short exercise, we were able to see how pollination occurs and why it is important to help save the bees. We then discussed negative and positive space and how it could be observed in the environment. Next, we broke up into two groups and had one student in each group be the leader bee. We then acted out the waggle dance, which is how bees "dance"to find the best flowers and nectar. This was a very fun exercise and I believe that students would love this activity. It is interactive and allows students to put themselves into the role of a bee which can leave a long lasting impression.

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During this lesson we also discussed how we could best support students with ASD in dance. We came up with a variety of accomodations and modifications such as: quieter lessons to reduce sensory overload, headphones, hands on lessons, quiet spaces, extra time and partners.

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This week the element of Space was introduced. According to the Ontario curriculum, space in dance is : space: levels (e.g., low to high by reaching; high to low by falling, crouching), directions (e.g., forwards, backwards, sideways), general and personal. Through space we practiced how utilize different levels, pathways and directions in our dances.

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The theory of Multiple Intelligences differentiates human intelligence into specific modalities, rather than seeing intelligence as dominated by a single general ability. As a teacher, it is important to understand how your students learn and what the best methods are to use in order to reach all of your students. As a class we discussed all of the modalities and listed courses that we thought they would fit best in. For example, we came up with the following list:

Visual/Spatial: art , math

Verbal/Linguistic: language arts, drama

Bodily/Kinesthetic: gym, dance, drama,  math

Musical/auditory/rhythmic: music, pe 

Interpersonal:  drama, language arts, social studies

Intrapersonal: social studies, art, language 

Logical: math, science, social studies

Naturalist: science, social studies,