Classroom Resource

Exploring Our Environments Through Movement

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

1

Overview

Students will explore and choose a favorite cultural dance style.  Working in groups, they will combine dance patterns, styles, shapes, and rhythms to form movement phrases.  They will perform their dance for the class.   

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.3

Describe movement choices within a dance that create a beginning, middle, and end

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.3

Vocabulary

  • Prompts
  • elements of dance
  • choreography
  • structure
  • content and inspiration for movement
  • improvisation
  • dance phrase
  • feedback and revision
  • notation

Essential Questions

EU: The elements of dance, dance structures, and choreographic devices serve as both a foundation and a departure point for choreographers.
EQ: What influences choice-making in creating choreography?

Skills Examples

  • Create movement based on music/ sound, artwork or tactile prompts.
  • Demonstrate a leap in a different direction, a turn on a different level or a run in different timing.
  • Observe a dance and discuss how it began (low level in stillness), what happened in the middle (became fast) and how it ended (dancer exit).
  • Discover how movements and elements can change the emotion of a dance, such as slow and curved movements can express sadness.
  • Perform a dance in different ways, changing the elements of the movement.
  • Create a personal key of symbols for movements (i.e., Jump ↑, turn ⟲, bend ↶).

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.4

Select movements that express an idea or emotion or follow a musical phrase.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.4

Vocabulary

  • Prompts
  • elements of dance
  • choreography
  • structure
  • content and inspiration for movement
  • improvisation
  • dance phrase
  • feedback and revision
  • notation

Essential Questions

EU: The elements of dance, dance structures, and choreographic devices serve as both a foundation and a departure point for choreographers.
EQ: What influences choice-making in creating choreography?

Skills Examples

  • Create movement based on music/ sound, artwork or tactile prompts.
  • Demonstrate a leap in a different direction, a turn on a different level or a run in different timing.
  • Observe a dance and discuss how it began (low level in stillness), what happened in the middle (became fast) and how it ended (dancer exit).
  • Discover how movements and elements can change the emotion of a dance, such as slow and curved movements can express sadness.
  • Perform a dance in different ways, changing the elements of the movement.
  • Create a personal key of symbols for movements (i.e., Jump ↑, turn ⟲, bend ↶).

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.7

Create movement and stillness using changing elements of space.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.7

Vocabulary

  • Elements of Space: Shape, Level, Size, Direction, Pathway
  • Time: Tempo/ Speed
  • Tempi
  • Energy: Movement qualities
  • Embody
  • Locomotor
  • Non-locomotor
  • Direction
  • Explore
  • Spatial Awareness
  • Personal space
  • General space
  • Body awareness
  • Dance phrase
  • Space
  • Props

Essential Questions

EU: Space, time, and energy are basic elements of dance.
EQ: How do dancers work with space, time, and energy to communicate artistic expression?

Skills Examples

  • Demonstrate changes to level, size, direction and pathways in body shapes, locomotor and non-locomotor movement.
  • Create or recall locomotor movement in a variety of chosen pathways; zig zag, circular, straight (i.e., move in straight, curved, and zigzag pathways).
  • Join with others to make a circle, then work with others to change it to a square or line.
  • Create a curved shape on a low level.
  • Recognize steady beat and move to varying tempi of steady beat.
  • Observe, discuss and demonstrate changes in the energy and quality of given movement (jerky, smooth, melting, growing, bouncy, floppy).
  • Apply changes to a given movement sequence, making practiced steps jerky or smooth.
  • Question how changes in the way we do a movement can change the feel of it and also the appearance of it.
  • Demonstrate movement or steps in different facings and directions.
    • Skipping in a circle, reaching on a diagonal
  • Explore the space around their own body: How can they move without getting too close to another dancer, the wall, mirror, surroundings using perception of sight and body awareness.
  • Demonstrate unison movement in group formation (marching, skipping in a circle, etc.).
  • Discuss, identify and demonstrate ways to modify movement or placement in a group formation using perception of spatial awareness.
  • Modify an existing formation by utilizing more dance pathways.
  • Modify an existing dance phrase to utilize the space differently.
  • Perform a dance in theatre-in-the-round format.
  • Perform a dance in a non-traditional setting such as a football field.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.13

Perform a dance for others in a space where audience and performers occupy different areas.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.13

Vocabulary

  • Elements of Space: Shape, Level, Size, Direction, Pathway
  • Time: Tempo/ Speed
  • Tempi
  • Energy: Movement qualities
  • Embody
  • Locomotor
  • Non-locomotor
  • Direction
  • Explore
  • Spatial Awareness
  • Personal space
  • General space
  • Body awareness
  • Dance phrase
  • Space
  • Props

Essential Questions

EU: Dance performance is an interaction between performer, production elements, and audience that heightens and amplifies artistic expression.
EQ: How does a dancer heighten artistry in a public performance?

Skills Examples

  • Demonstrate changes to level, size, direction and pathways in body shapes, locomotor and non-locomotor movement.
  • Create or recall locomotor movement in a variety of chosen pathways; zig zag, circular, straight (i.e., move in straight, curved, and zigzag pathways).
  • Join with others to make a circle, then work with others to change it to a square or line.
  • Create a curved shape on a low level.
  • Recognize steady beat and move to varying tempi of steady beat.
  • Observe, discuss and demonstrate changes in the energy and quality of given movement (jerky, smooth, melting, growing, bouncy, floppy).
  • Apply changes to a given movement sequence, making practiced steps jerky or smooth.
  • Question how changes in the way we do a movement can change the feel of it and also the appearance of it.
  • Demonstrate movement or steps in different facings and directions.
    • Skipping in a circle, reaching on a diagonal
  • Explore the space around their own body: How can they move without getting too close to another dancer, the wall, mirror, surroundings using perception of sight and body awareness.
  • Demonstrate unison movement in group formation (marching, skipping in a circle, etc.).
  • Discuss, identify and demonstrate ways to modify movement or placement in a group formation using perception of spatial awareness.
  • Modify an existing formation by utilizing more dance pathways.
  • Modify an existing dance phrase to utilize the space differently.
  • Perform a dance in theatre-in-the-round format.
  • Perform a dance in a non-traditional setting such as a football field.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 6: Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.16

Observe and describe dance movements from a specific genre or culture.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.16

Vocabulary

  • Identify recurring movement.
  • Identify movements in culture dance or genre.
  • Utilize dance terminology to communicate.
  • Explain dance choices.

Essential Questions

EU: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
EQ: How is dance understood?

Skills Examples

  • View recorded or live dance phrases and identify patterns (i.e., Trisha Brown's Accumulation).
  • Observe an example of a simple canon.
  • Tap: flap, toe heel, shuffle, dig step
  • Ballet: plié, tendu, rond de jambe, chaîne
  • African Dance: hand waves, step touch, hops
  • View a recorded dance work and discuss what the dance may be about. Hypothesize the meaning of dance work (i.e., Alvin Ailey's Revelation, Martha Graham's Lamentation).
  • Improvise movement to specific music to evoke specific emotion
  • Explore and explain dance choices (i.e., Shaking hands to express frustration, holding heart to express love, pointing to ring finger to express marriage, saluting to express patriotism).

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Dance

AE17.D.1.21

Observe and perform a dance from a familiar culture that utilizes multiple elements of dance.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.D.1.21

Vocabulary

  • Elements of Dance
  • Connect dance to a familiar experience.
  • Connect dance to an illustrated story.
  • Elements of dance
  • Cultural Movement Practices
  • Dance Literacy

Essential Questions

EU: Dance literacy includes deep knowledge and perspectives about societal, cultural, historical, and community contexts.
EQ: How does knowing about societal, cultural, historical and community experiences expand dance literacy?

Skills Examples

  • Perform a dance to express the coming of spring.
  • Utilize shapes and movements of the body to improvise the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly.
  • Utilize dance to show a plant's life cycle.
  • Utilize shapes to create a setting for a story.
  • Demonstrate the shapes and movement of a dance that was performed at school or in the community.
  • Identify attributes of cultural dance that was taught in class.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
Link to Resource
https://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/dan1-exploreourenvironments…

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

Colorado Department of Education
Accessibility
License

License Type

Custom

Custom License Type (URL)

http://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/samplecurriculumproject

Comments or Notes

Unit Storyboard

Approved Date

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