"The Figure 5 in Gold " by Charles Demuth

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Recently, I posted and shared about the language of childhood and favorite moves of 1-5 year olds (in the words of their parents). Today, I share some ideas about 5 year olds, in their own words. A previous school year, I asked dance colleague Valerie Gutwirth to share some ideas from her TK  and Kindergarten dance classes at John Muir Elementary School in Berkeley, CA. We hope that these words can spark new ideas and explorations as the school year begins.

I wrote about the process and value of naming movement in the chapter called "A Trio: Combining Language, Literacy and Movement in Preschool and Kindergarten Community-Based Dance Classes" in Mira-Lisa Katz's book Moving Ideas: Multimodality and Embodied Learning in Communities and Schools. The interplay of language and movement in early childhood dance classes is a beautiful thing.

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Our Favorite Moves (January 2015)

By John Muir TK and K Students for Jill Randall

 

What we did: We tried out lots of possible favorite moves during Freeze Dance Time, then chose one, showed it to the group, and chose from audience suggestions to name it.

TK (these students are all newly 5 years old)

Punch, kick, spin

Robot

Cartwheel spin

Punch

Break Dance (floor work)

Skip turn

Jump roll push

Ballerina Spin

Superstar, Supermove, Superdonkey

—–

Kindergarten (Room 1)

Worm Crawler

Spinning Feet

Lie back with knees under

Jump splits

The twist

Jump kick

Pop Lock (hip hop pointing move)

Tornado

Superdance

Break

Backflip (this was a backward shoulder roll!!)

Roll spin

—–

Kindergarten (Room 2)

Wobble Jello

Rabbit walk

Walk clap

Shake

Spin

Crawl

Jump

Party time

Flopping

Leap

Break dance

Rhino horn

Pranking

Twist

Crabwalk

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Related posts:

Dance Classes with Children Ages 1-5 Years Old

Artist Profile: Valerie Gutwirth

Picture Books for Children's Dance Classes: The "Dancing Words" Blog

Mira-Lisa Katz's Book Moving Ideas: Multimodality and Embodied Learning in Communities and Schools