Ocean Waves, White Rapids, and a Water Dance

Week 3

This week, the lesson plan was intended to encourage students to demonstrate an understanding of descriptive words.  The ability to determine the meaning of an adjective, and then demonstrate it through body movement, is a great way for students to solidify an understanding.

I started the lesson by taking the class on a warm up using descriptive words.  As we danced through the open spaces of the gym, I guided them with adjectives such as floppy, crooked, melted, heavy, and light, as well as emotional descriptions such as happy and sad.  They demonstrated the meaning of the words through their body's movement.

Next, we did an exercise that used adjectives to describe different forms of water.  In groups, we danced out white water rapids, falling rain, a calm and deep ocean, soaring ocean waves, and a slow and easy stream.  As a class we had a discussion on how the different adjectives that describe the elements of water influenced different movement from within us.

The final portion of the lesson was spent with the book, "Water Dance," written by Thomas Locker.  The class was divided into small groups of 3 or 4 and given a page of the book.  Each page has a beautifully designed image, and a paragraph with words describing different water scenes as part of the water cycle.  They worked as a team to create a short movement sequence based on their page. Once they were done, they returned the pages to me, and posed in the group opening shape.  The dancers waited along the back wall, until their page number was up next.  When it was their time, the group would move to the center of the room and perform their brilliant woks. Each group worked well together to create movement that matched with the descriptive words on the page very well.  I was proud of their unique dance creations!