Telling Time

Today, we talked about telling time and the differences between A.M. and P.M.  I went a slightly different route than I have in the past few months and used an already written lesson plan by the brilliant Erika Cravath (for more information on her thesis project and wonderful work, see the Resources tab.)  It was a little tricky using someone else’s lesson plan because I wasn’t as familiar with it, but I have used her lesson plans before and they are always amazing.  

The students did a great job right from the very start of distinguishing growing, expanding movements and shrinking, collapsing movements and connecting them with A.M. and P.M. times respectively.  Things got a little pantomimic when I asked for shapes that represented things you do in the A.M. or in the P.M., but I knew they would.  With an older class I would have gone on to talk about abstraction and really require more creative representations, but I think they did well enough with what I asked. 

The amazing thing about today was how well behaved they were.  They came in, we began the brain dance and they were so quiet and concentrated . . . it was beautiful.  I talked to Mrs. Findlay about it afterwards and she said they had quite the discussion prior to coming in about how to act in dance class – it is so nice to have her fully involved and supportive.  She is going to do very well when she begins teaching these classes herself.

Today during the create/perform section, I performed a dance with one of the groups.  I think maybe this would be a good thing to keep doing so they can see an example of what I want to see and how to really use the elements of dance to make an interesting piece.  A few students are really beginning to explore the movement during their little performances, which is nice to see.  I’ll keep reinforcing the exciting use of dance elements to create aesthetic dances.

Favorite Moments:

•  When I performed my dance and asked them what interesting things they saw in the group, one boy raised his hand and said, “I don’t know, I was only watching you.  But I saw levels.”  It was so sweet.
•  The class got really excited about figuring out what time I was representing with my arms as a clock.  Because it was a very different medium, it was tricky, but they were so excited when they figured out 3:45.