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Round Valley Arts Curriculum
| FIRST GRADE DANCE |
I. ARTISTIC PERCEPTION AND RESPONSE
Students become aware of themselves', space, time, energy,
and the power of dance to communicate ideas and feelings. As they dance, watch,
and talk about performances and their own experiences, they increase their awareness
of:
The body
1. Identifying and moving single body parts.
2. Moving combinations of body parts.
3. Making shapes with the body.
4.
Finding similarities between dance movements and movements of objects
in the environment.
Time
1.
Experimenting with contrasting movements: fast/slow, long/short, and
sudden/sustained.
Space (around the body)
1. Exploring open space, contained space and empty spaces.
2.
Playing with levels: low, medium, and high.
Energy
1. Discovering shadings of intensity.
2.
Exploring expenditure of energy through different movements.
Students will be exposed to these terms:
|
sudden |
tiny |
crawl |
near |
|
sustained |
huge |
gallop |
far |
|
sweeping |
practice |
slide |
high |
|
explosive |
leap |
low |
II. CREATIVE EXPRESSION
Students communicate observations, feelings, ideas and
experiences about things in their own world. Students engage in exercises and
complete dances as part of learning the following:
|
Strength/Fluidity |
Use gross and refined motor skills, focusing on eight basic locomotor skills: walk, run, jump, gallop, hop, skip, slide, and leap. Put these skills into rhythmic phrases. Practice qualities of movement: sustained, percussive, swing, suspension, and vibratory. Stimulate with images from the students' world: be a balloon floating through clouds, be boiling spaghetti, be ocean waves. |
|
Dancers' Practices |
Healthy practices (e.g., good nutrition and adequate
rest) |
|
Improvisation |
Clearly focus spontaneous individual and group responses to sounds (loud/soft, short/sustained), music (varied qualities and styles), and tactile sensations (rough/smooth; prickly/furry). |
|
Abstraction |
Invent movements in response to imagined situations and remembered experiences of inanimate objects like chairs, table, forks, rugs, etc. |
|
Performance |
Perform these skills for other classes and parents. |
III. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
Students experience dance performances as cultural and
historical events. They attend performances and/or see video or film recordings
of dance from a variety of cultures and times. They watch, listen and talk as
part of learning that:
1. men and women, adults and children are dancers,
2. dance is a part of everyday life,
3. most dances involve music and may involve costumes;
4.
different dances communicate different feelings and ideas.
They see and/or participate in:
1. dances that relate to units being taught (e.g., units in English/Language Arts and History-Social Science);
2.
discussions about the similarities and differences of the dances, costumes,
and sets.
IV. AESTHETIC VALUING
Students reflect on experiences as audience members and
dancers, talking about:
1. what they see in a dance, relating what they see to movements in their own lives and the world around them,
2.
reasons for personal preference ("I like. . ." or "l
don't like. . .") of the classroom experience, questions about dance (Why
do I like to dance? What do I like about dancing? What is dance and what isn't?).
V. CONNECTIONS, RELATIONS, APPLICATIONS
Students can connect, relate, and apply various types of arts knowledge and skills within the art form, across the arts disciplines (dance, music, theatre and visual arts), and with disciplines outside of the arts.