John Muir Elementary School Physical Education

After a week of "geting to know you" at the start of the school year, we bounded into Creative Dance for our first unit in Physical Education. I often use the analogy of making a cake... first we prepare the crust, then we add a layer, then another and another & another. (I love BIG cakes!) We do the same thing with our movement ideas.

First we do the foot travels. This is the crust: walk, jog, skip, gallop, slide.

Then for our first layer we added directions: forwards, backwards & sideways.

Then we added some "flavor". I asked the kids to spin their bodies when they had finished one travel and before they started the next. For example:

"travel (skip) - spin - travel (walk) - spin - travel (gallop) - spin..." Smart kids would remember to travel forwards, backwards & sideways.

Then we added shapes to our work: straight shapes, smooth shapes, pointy shapes, round shapes etc. Now instead of a spin they did a shape. For example; "travel - shape - travel - shape..."

We also talked about making our shapes at different levels: High, medium & low.

This is as far as the kindergarten student's (May, Padden & Pucci), got in this unit of creative dance. The older 1st grade & 2/3 grade students (Perry, Richards & Nordness) added a couple more layers to their cakes. I asked them to choose two different shapes that they could hold for 4 seconds. They did "travel - shape~shape - travel - shape~shape..." In this pattern, they moved from their first shape to their second shape before travelling again.

To add the final icing on the cake... I added a change of speed. I asked them to move from one shape to the other in slow motion. Also, to move fast from one shape to the other. Finally to mix it up... sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

If you would have walked into the gym during one of these classes, it might have looked fairly chaotic but with the information here, it should have been clear to see the different foot travels, the changes in direction, the different levels, the various shapes and changes of speed.

All very cool stuff!

Mr. Rumbelow