|
|
Greetings! I am Lynnette Young Overby, new editor for the
interdisciplinary page. I have taught K-12 schools in
Washington, D.C. as well as several universities. Presently, I
am an Associate Professor in the Department Theatre at Michigan
State University. Please feel free to offer suggestions
for future interdisciplinary content.
This interdisciplinary
section will focus on integrating dance into the curriculum.
Contents
- Elements of Dance
- Integrated Lesson
Ideas
- Websites
Creative dance can enhance the teaching and learning of many curricular concepts.
Children in the elementary grades learn best through active learning
strategies, and the integration of science with dance is very appealing
to the school-age child. The physical education and/or classroom
teacher does not have to be a professional dancer. She or he
needs to be willing to facilitate learning by providing structured
movement exploration problems. The teacher must become versed
in the vocabulary of movement (space, time, force, and body movement)
and knowledgeable in ways of organizing the class for learning.
Finally, the teacher should be able to move the children from exploration
to composition. As a culminating activity, students will be
able to create repeatable movement sequences under the guidance of
the instructor.
Lynnette Young Overby
Interdisciplinary Section Editor
|
|
Teaching
Science Through Creative Dance
Title: The Watercycle
Objectives: The students will explore movement depicting
the watercycle
Materials: Each student needs a streamer or a scarf
Music: "Whales" Music for Creative Dance Volume II by Eric Chappelle
Story Dance
- The water in the stream moves gently as it flows into the
river (free flowing slow locomotor and nonlocomotor movements)
- Molecules of water become hot and move into the air spreading
out and moving faster (fast, light and high level movement)
- As the water vapor rises higher it reaches cooler air - the
cool air makes the water vapor slow down, and move closer together
- a cloud is formed. (move into groups of 4 or 5, make cloud
shapes using scarves)
- Soon the water drops become too heavy to remain in the air
as clouds, and gravity brings them down to the earth as rain.
Rain drops strike the ground like tiny bombs, flinging up the
earth. (high to low level movement, hitting the ground with
the hands at the low level)
- Some rain drops seep slowly into the ground while others
form tiny streams, and others cling to plant leaves. (freeze
ending shape).
Assessment: Students draw a picture of the water cycle and
label each phase.
Lynnette Young Overby
|
|
Teaching Language
Arts Through Creative Dance
grades 3-5
Objective:
The student will create original movements to accompany poetry.
Materials: Copies of poem "Dreams" by Langston Hughes
Procedures:
- Students read the poem in unison
- In groups of 5 the students create movements to the poem
Dreams
By Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams - (Balanced and connected group shape)
For If dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird (Group shape breaks apart)
That cannot fly. (Rolling to low level shape)
Hold fast to dreams (Individual balanced shape)
For when dreams go (slow, sustained movements)
Life is a barren field (percussive nonlocomotor and locomotor movements)
Frozen in snow. (Ending in individual frozen shapes)
Lynnette Young Overby
|
|  |
| Integrated
Lesson Ideas Cont'd |
Teaching Math Through Creative Dance
grades 1-3
Objective: The students will be able to create dances
that reflect the concept of time
Procedures:
- In groups of three the students will work together to form
a clock. One will be the hour hand, one the minute hand,
and one the second hand. They may decide to be an alarm
clock, a cuckoo clock, a grandfather clock, a digital clock etc.
- The students will read poems, riddles, or stories that
deal with time. The students will then dance the story and
make clock faces or numbers at appropriate places. Examples
include the following:
It's twelve fifty-five;
School starts at one.
I have only _____;
I'm going to have to run.
Right now it's ten o'clock
The movie starts at three.
I'm going to have _____;
That's time to trim the tree.
At seven o'clock it's out of bed; I stretch my arms and legs.
At eight o'clock it's breakfast time; I feel like toast and eggs.
At nine o'clock I run to school; I want to be on time.
At ten o'clock we work on math; I'm feeling very fine.
At eleven o'clock we go to music; and there we sing a song.
At twelve o'clock it's home for lunch; I won't be hungry long.
Resource: Ann Green Gilbert (1975) Teaching the Three
Rs Through Movement Experiences.
Line segments, End Points,
Angles, and Rays
Grade Level: 4 - 6
Objectives: The students will:
1. Describe line segments and their relation to end points.
2. Distinguish between different types of angles.
Materials:
Colored Yarn (3ft. segments)
Progression:
Have every student in class stand in a separate space throughout
the room.
- Label them end points
- Connect each end point with a piece of yarn, forming line segments
. Have all of the line segments connected at the same level (plane)
and call it 2-dimensional.
- Then ask different students to kneel, lie down, and
raise arms up high to have the line segments travel through
many levels (planes)
- Explain that pattern is now 3-dimensional.
- Use the yarn to connect at corners.
- Explain that when 2 line segments come together at a corner,
they form an angle.
- Have each person from an angle on the f floor with the yarn.
- Then have them show the same type of angle with the
body.
- Each student explores ways to create angles in different parts of
the body (arms, legs, back).
Identify types of angles as right, acute, and obtuse.
- Using the yarn, have each student create a specific type
of angle on the floor.
- Show the angle with the body in some way
- Have students combine their yarn and put line segments together
to form different t types of figures.
- Explain that these figures are called polygons (closed figures
made of line segments).
- Have the pairs and trios form a polygon with their yarn and
then create the idea in their combined bodies or run its pattern
on the floor.
- Choose some problems that clearly show both non-polygons and polygons.
Make the figure with the yarn, and then transfer it into body design.
Create 3-dimensional figures made with both the body and the yarn
together.
- Have small groups of students make 2-dimensional polygons
with their bodies alone.
- Then combine their bodies and yarn.
- Then create 3-dimensional figures.
- Introduce the concept of rays and show how these are also made of
line segments coming into and out of a central point.
- Demonstrate in the body.
- Have students start from a central point and run their line
segments out and away from that point.
- Reverse the id ea.
- Follow-up:
- Take specific problems from the math book and do them in
movement
- Have students create designs on paper using the idea of line
segment, different types of angles, and rays.
Vocabulary: Line segment, end point, angle, acute obtuse,
right angle, polygon, ray, 2-and 3 dimensional plane.
Resource:
Susan Cambigue, Learning through Dance/Movement |
|
|
|
Artsedge includes many interdisciplinary lessons that enable educators
to teach in, through and about the arts.
|
|
Space
- Place - self space and general space
- Levels - low, middle and high
- Directions - forward, backward, right side, left side, up,
down
- Range - big, medium, little, near reach and far reach
- Pathways - curved, straight and zigzag
Time
- Speed - slow and fast
- Rhythms - pulse, pattern and breath
Force
- Energy - smooth and sharp
- Weight - strong and light
- Flow - free and bound
Body Movement
- Locomotor Movement - walk, run, jump, hop, leap, gallop,
slide and skip
- Nonlocomotor Movement - bend, stretch, twist, rotate, shake,
flex and extend.
- Shapes - curved, straight, angular, twisted, symmetrical
and asymmetrical
|
"...dance education must be emotional, intellectual, and spiritual,
as well as physical, if dance is to contribute to the larger aims
of education--the developing of personality through conscious
experiencing. It should capitalize every possible resource,
selecting and integrating the contributions into a totality
~Margaret N. H'Doubler~
|
|
Interdisciplinary Web-Sites
|
| If you have ideas, comments, letters to share, or questions about particular
topics, please email one of the following Interdisciplinary PE
Section Editors: |
| Help to support quality physical education and health education
by contributing to this site. |
| Please let your
colleagues know about PELINKS4U, and remember you can catch up on
a year's worth of news in our Archives. |
|
