GRADE

TOPIC

UNIT

Kindergarten

Body Parts

Dance

Equipment Needed

Drum or other percussion instrument; smart board or marker and poster board or paper to list names of body parts.

Before starting this unit, see if the classroom teacher, librarian, or a parent would be interested in reading one or more of these stories to the class. Stories about strong, courageous children, such as Brave Irene by William Steig, John Henry by Julius Lester; The Boy Who Held Back the Sea retold by T. Locker, The Emperor and the Kite by Jane Yolen, or The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Arielle North Olson.

Content Standard Benchmarks or Common Core Standards

Learning Goals, Objectives, Expected Outcomes

Psychomotor

1. Show increasing awareness of their bodies and body parts by exploring a wide variety of locomotor and nonlocomotor movements and by holding still positions

Cognitive

1. Discover and invent different ways to make body parts important while traveling and pausing; choose and demonstrate favorite ways

Affective

1. Work cooperatively in a dance situation by listening and responding appropriately to instructions, especially signals to start and stop moving.
2. Enjoy moving independently as they look for and travel to open, empty spaces

ACTIVITY

PROCEDURE AND TRANSITIONS WITH MODIFICATIONS AND OR ACCOMMODATIONS

DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGIES, TEACHING TIPS, SETUP DESCRIPTION OR DIAGRAM

Entrance Routine

Part 1

Warm-up/Review

10 minutes

Ask the children to find a friend and stand together knee to knee. Ask one partner to stand and one to stay sitting. Designate the one standing to be a tornado and one sitting to be a rainbow.

When you say go, they will play the game with both rainbows and tornadoes moving at the same time. Remind the children that the job of the rainbow is to put all the garbage (beanbags and soft balls) on the boundary spots to clean up the area. The tornadoes are to be the wind that moves all the garbage back into the activity area (messing up the area). Demonstrate how this works simultaneously with one pair of children. Caution the children to watch out for each other as they move about as rainbows and tornadoes.

After a few minutes, let the pairs of children switch being tornadoes and rainbows.Teaching Tip Establish and use a number of different ways to divide the class into pairs or small groups. Consider height, age, closest in proximity, hair color or length, clothing colors, equipment colors, etc.

DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGY

• Have the tornadoes travel different ways to bring the garbage into the boundaries.
• Have the rainbows color match the garbage.

Part 2

New skill or concept

Making Body Parts important

Let’s Travel to the Drum!

Tap a steady beat on a drum or other percussion instrument. Everyone look for and move into the empty spaces as I tap my drum and be ready to stop quickly. Ready? Travel! Move into empty spaces-and stop! Do you see any places that are empty? Look hard for empty, open spaces as you travel so when we stop next time, all the spaces will be filled. Start and stop children frequently.

This time when we stop, show me how important your body is by holding very still. Don’t move a muscle. You know where every body part is in space!

Repeat starting and stopping.

Just look at all these magnificent frozen bodies! Not a muscle is moving. How much strength it takes to hold our body shapes still! Capture children’s attention by linking their names with alliterative adjectives-Courageous Caroline, Super Salim, Amazing Annie

Again, ‘travel, travel, travel … and stop.’ Repeat several times. Tighten your leg muscles-hold very still!

This time when you stop, lift up or reach out with your elbow and hold it still. Show it is the most important body part in the world! Ready and ‘travel, travel … and stop.’ Reach with an elbow.

Suggest body parts to emphasize, then let children choose parts. Head, knees, hip, foot, hand, shoulder, back, stomach, etc.

Part 3

Practice

Repeat several times. Ask for more ideas and follow the children’s lead.

Let’s make a word list. Who’s ready to name an important body part?

Print children’s responses in large, lower case letters on poster board or make a computer printout. Along with photos of the children in action, the list makes a great bulletin board display.

Provide a variety of rhythmic accompaniment on the drum or play music.

Every single time we stop traveling, make a different body part important. You have at least 38 different body parts to show the world. Ready? Look for empty spaces. Now, ‘travel, travel, travel … and stop. [Pause.] Make a body part important!’ [Repeat, encouraging children to emphasize different body parts.]

Divide the class into two groups. Accompany with percussion or music.

This half of the class show us your dances by traveling and pausing, making a different body part important every time you stop. Those of us in the audience get ready to name the important body parts you see. ‘Travel, travel, travel … and stop.’ What body part is [Ashley] making important? Exactly! See her left knee lifted high? She is looking at it, too! Let’s all try again. ‘Travel, travel … and stop.’ What body part is [Freddie] showing the world? How about [Nan? Delphia?] Pause frequently to focus attention on different children, naming important body parts. Switch groups after several tries.

Part 4

Stretching & closure