Tuesday, February 8, 2011

DANCE!

It was with great anticipation that I opened the mystery envelope that arrived in my mailbox during the last week of Christmas holidays - each year the principal chooses a new theme that is kept top secret. What would it be? Last year was SPLASH! The year before that was BLOOM!

So what would it be this year??

A glittering (and a tad misshapen) disco ball answered my question - DANCE!

Ok Liz, I hear you thinking, how are you supposed to get a whole years worth of work and cover all the VELS/National Curriculum with only one theme - not to mention something like DANCE????

Therein lies the challenge. Dance isn't about the art and culture side of things, it's about taking risks, feeling safe and confident and trying new things. It's about dancing on the inside as well as the outside and having faith in yourself.

"Dance like nobody is watching"

So, what's happened so far?

The scene has been set - there are disco balls hanging from the ceilings and we started the year with nothing on the walls to prompt the children to be inspired to fill them.

There was so much excitement on the first day...

"The light is reflecting from the disco ball!"
"Why is it sparkly?"
"Can I teach you a dance I know?"
"I know! Let's find out about different dances and where they come from!"
"Could we do a production?"
"Can my mum come and teach us a dance?"
"Can my sister come and do Zumba with us?"
"Can we label a map and put up flags from all the countries we find dances from?"

Already the children have begun looking at traditional dances from their backgrounds and their history. They are finding flags and using atlases. They are figuring out how old dances are and where they came from. They are eager to go home and find experts in their family to question about history and culture.

Some Year Four students have found a suitable wall space and are creating a display to share everyone's research. After a few days I already have samples of factual texts they have all written and an idea of their ability to locate and interpret information. Sharing discoveries with each other has given me opportunities to observe their note taking, speaking and listening skills. I can already see who works well in a group, who can take themselves further and who is organised.

As a Village we have looked at the story "Giraffes Can't Dance" and the hymn "Lord of the Dance". Some children have already made links between totems, teepees and this years theme. The children have organised and chosen names related to Dance for each home group and some have designed logos - there are even some children in another home group who are writing theme songs to go with their home group name.

Can you believe how much we have managed to achieve in 4 days of school? Where will we dance to next?

I couldn't resist finishing up this post with a clip from one of my favourite movies - "Napoleon Dynamite". It encapsulates what it means to dance at my school - Napoleon was not a popular kid at high school, yet he took a risk and danced like nobody was watching to support his friend Pedro in his campaign for school president. He risked being ridiculed but danced his heart out anyway, not letting himself be stymied by what others thought of him. Go Napoleon and Vote for Pedro!



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