Mrs. Golesh's Class Jan. 18th, 2013

On my final visit to Mrs. Golesh's class we continued to practice the Pavane, the Gallard, and the class dance so that the students would be ready for their performance. The dances that we worked on helped the student to review the concepts that they had learned from their Middle Ages unit. This Arts Bridge experience occurred with one of the 6th grade classes at Herramin Elementary, but Mrs. Golesh has said that she plans to also do this with the other 6th grade classes as the classes switch teachers for each unit in Social Studies at Herramin Elementary.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Jan. 16th, 2013

On my sixth visit to Mrs. Golesh's class most of the class was back from being sick, but we did still have quite a few students missing. Instead of warming up using the brain dance we practiced the Pavane and the Gallard which would also be performed for the other 6th grade classes. We then added the students who were absent on day five into the lineup for the dance and went over what we had worked on before. The new students were given time to come up with their solos while the students who already had their solos were given time to practice their solos. We then spent most of the class practicing the dance and making sure that they were being clear about their performance.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Jan. 14th, 2013

For the fifth day I visited Mrs. Golesh's class we started work on putting together a class dance to be performed for the other 6th grade classes. Over half of the class was absent due to a flu bug that had been going around so the students who were there learned the dance so that other students could be added in between them for my next visit. We started off with the brain dance to get warmed up and then got to work putting together movement from the concepts we had already talked about in classes. The first part of the dance was representative of what we learned about pathways and locomotor movement that followed the patterns found in maps. The second part of the dance brought each student on stage in small groups to do their movement from the day we talked about speed and the social pyramid. The last part we learned on the fifth day was related to the lesson we did on body parts and stained class windows. Each student was asked to find three different shapes that the could dance between which emphasized two body parts for each shape. The students performed these as short solo sequences starting one after the other. We then spent the rest of the class practicing the movement they had come up with for the dance.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Wednesday Jan. 9th, 2013

The fourth day I visited Mrs. Golesh's class we talked about the castles that were built in the Middle ages and their construction. To start the class we, again, warmed up with the brain dance. This time Mrs. Golesh led them in the brain dance. She did very good incorporating some crossovers to keep the brain dance interesting. I have noticed that starting every class with the brain dance seems to be a nice opportunity for students to come to class knowing what it will start with. They seem to enjoy being able to remember what order the brain dance goes in and have fun changing it up sometimes.

 I taught the students two dances that were done in castles in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance periods. The first dance was called the Pavane. The Pavane was always the first dance done at any dancing parties held in castles. The dance following the Pavane was called the Gallard. The Gallard was a more lively, quick, jumping dance. As I taught both of these classes we talked about the music that was played live at the dances by musicians who sat up on a balcony over the dance. We practiced the dances to the actual music that would have been played at these dances. We also talked about the different clothing and costumes that would have been worn at these dances. We talked about how the clothes were extremely heavy so they probably would not have jumped very high and they would have needed to be very graceful in their dancing. The students were allowed to dance in boy-boy, girl-girl, or boy-girl partnerships so they were more comfortable, but I did explain that traditionally the dances would have always been done boy-girl.

Overall the lesson seemed to go really well. The students were very receptive to being taught a dance that really came from the time period they were studying. I could tell that the students were a little uncomfortable with some of the creative portions of the classes that we had been working on, but they did seem much more comfortable learning the pre-set movement. The students also seemed to enjoy getting to know more about the social culture of the time period they were learning about. In the future  it would be nice to have access to even more pictures, videos, and possibly even costume pieces for the students to see. I think this was one of the most enjoyable and successful classes we have had so far.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Mon. Jan. 7th, 2013

The third day that I visited Mrs. Golesh's class we worked on the use of different body parts in movement and their relation to stained glass windows that would have been found in Middle Ages churches. Unfortunately we did not get the stage space so we danced in the class room which was small for the 6th grade students.

We started with the brain dance again. As a practice moving body parts the students spread throughout the space and one student drew a card with a body part listed on it. Then the students had to try to move that body part in creative ways. At first the students seemed hesitant and uncomfortable with moving creatively. I modeled some different ideas and most of the students laughed. I encouraged them to feel silly about their dancing and said that was "ok." This seemed to help a lot and more of the students seemed to get more creative and include full body movement. It also helped to make it a bit of a competition to see who could do the most creative movement.

 The creative portion of the class did not work as well as planned. The plan was to do a similar activity to what we did with the social pyramid. Every student was given a body part and they were supposed to form a body and position themselves in space where those body parts would be. Then they were going to come up with movement for that body part. Then the students would come up with movement to move to a new place in the body and create movement for the new body part. It worked out so that they ended up forming line of the body parts and doing improvisational movement with some of the body parts that they got to switch to.

 Overall this lesson was not the best planned lesson with the most engaging learning activities and the student were very talkative throughout so it became hard to manage. After teaching this lesson I participated in a different class that had much better learning activities for this kind of lesson that I will plan to try before we add this section to the class's final dance.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Fri. Jan 4, 2013

For my second visit to Mrs. Golesh's class we talked about speed in dance and how this related to the Social Pyramid during the Middle Ages. First Amanda introduced the classifications in the social pyramid and talked about some of the activities and responsibilities of the different classes in the social pyramid. To help the students understand how taxes of the people worked during the middle ages the students participated in an M&M activity in which their M&M's represented the money they were paying or being paid for taxes. Each student in the class was assigned a different social class and had to pay taxes according to that class. We used these class assignments later on in the dance portion of the lesson as a part of the choreography section.

 To get warmed up to dance we did the brain dance. After the brain dance we talked more about what kinds of activities were associated with each social class and what speed of movement these activities would require. To practice differences in speed of movement students performed locomotor movements across the floor working with different speeds.

 After the students had time to experience different speeds of movement we worked on an improvisation of a social pyramid dance. Each student lined up in a social pyramid according to their assigned social class. The students were asked to move to the opposite side of the room improvising creative movement at the speed associated with their social class. Once they had reached the opposite side of the room they were asked to hold an interesting shape until the rest of the class had reached that side of the room. The class practiced this improvisation several times and got chances to watch each other's improvisations.

Mrs. Golesh's Class Wed Jan 2, 2013

For our first lesson together our middle ages concepts were maps and map vocabulary and our dance concepts were pathways and locomotor steps.

 We started with short introductions and got some feedback from the students about what they thought we would be doing in a dance class. We responses that students thought they would be learning ballroom dances like the waltz and they were nervous that they were going to be forced to work together in boy-girl partnerships.

 As an introduction to the day we discussed what the students knew about maps and what they tell us. We also looked at a map of where the kingdoms of the middle ages were. It would have been nice to be able to have a bigger map so that it would be easier for the students to see the kingdoms and where they were in relation to each other. We also talked about how in dance we have different kinds of pathways that might be like the roads or trails on a map.

 After we had discussed the concepts of maps and pathways we did the brain dance as a warm up. Over the course of this unit of the Middle Ages and dance we have planned to use the brain dance as a warm up for each lesson so that the students know what to expect at the beginning of class and have something that is familiar from class to class. This is also a warm up that Amanda has previously learned so she also felt more comfortable teaching it in her class. For this first lesson we kept the brain dance simple and just guided them through each of the parts (breath, core distal, head tail, upper lower, body half, cross lateral, vestibuar) allowing them to do improvisational movement that they were comfortable with.

 Next we had the students try different pathways of dance for themselves. The students spread out throughout the room in their own space. We determined what kind of pathway to do and then had the students practice that pathway in any way they wanted to music. We did this for each of the pathways. Throughout this activity we incorporated crossovers, such as “try finding a straight pathway on a low level”, to get the students to be more creative with their movement.

 At the end of the class we had the students choreograph their own dances based on the ideas of pathways and maps. The students picked their own groups and got time to choreograph a dance that traveled from one side of the room to the other side of the room using multiple locomotor steps and all 3 of the types of pathways. After the students had some time to refine their choreography and we got to help some of the groups with their ideas the students performed their dances for each other.