Elementary Dance Education: Nature-Themed Creative Movement and Collaborative Learning (Original PDF from Publisher)

Youngsters enjoy watching, investigating, learning, and making things. They can perform all four with the aid of elementary dance education. It accomplishes this in a distinctive manner by focusing its movement exercises on topics related to nature. Since the book blends children’s natural curiosity and observational abilities with the methods of scientific research and artistic production, all of the learning activities are actually based on various facets of nature. With more than 70 movement activities and exercises for children in grades K–6, Elementary Dance Education assists instructors in gaining the teaching skills necessary to integrate dance into their curricula. Both younger and older pupils can participate in the programs, which engage kids’ bodies and minds through group dance creation. To make the activities more accessible and suitable for all age groups, suggestions are provided for partner or small-group investigations. The original music that goes with this book is another distinctive aspect of it. Teachers can use HKPropel to access 90 minutes of powerful noises, rhythmic percussion, engrossing electro-acoustic compositions, and soft atmospheric selections to go along with the lessons. By expressing a variety of feelings and pictures and eliciting a range of reactions, the compositions assist students in their movement explorations. Additionally, the following are provided by Elementary Dance Education:

Each exercise includes discussion questions that encourage student research and in-class conversation. The questions also include sample thoughts or solutions to help students respond and facilitate productive discussions.
To provide ideas for the movement exercises and to demonstrate postures and stances, there are 75 pictures and many diagrams.
Journal questions designed for both younger and older pupils to allow them to react and consider what they have learned
HKPropel offers video links that can be used to demonstrate ideas and tasks, give examples, or motivate students to watch for a particular aspect of an activity.

The first chapter of the book explains the fundamentals of dance, while the other seven chapters include movement exercises based on different aspects of nature, including humans, animals, plants, water, earth, and the sky. This book is a comprehensive and simple-to-use resource for classroom instructors as well as elementary dance and physical education teachers. Students will watch, investigate, create, and share as they go through the movement exploration exercises in this book. According to author Janice Pomer, this template “can be applied to all areas of the curriculum.” As it satisfies children’s ability to observe, wonder, move, interact, explore, and share, it is a priceless instrument for student engagement. As they collaborate to explore, create, and share their thoughts and observations about the natural world via dance, elementary dance education will foster children’s creativity and curiosity, engage and challenge their brains and bodies, and teach them to value and support one another. Note: Every new print book comes with a code to access HKPropel.