Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
West Side Story Suite and In The Night Fancy Free
West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet—two classics in their own rights that help young literature lovers better analyze different works. Learners research and compare the characters and story elements of West Side Story and Romeo...
Curated OER
Telling Stories Through Dance
Examine the movement of characters in the story, Caps for Sale. Using the text, pupils invent gestures and movements for some of the actions and major events. They practice retelling a story by using the movements they developed. They...
Curated OER
Day One Dance Workshop
Fifth graders complete a unit of lessons on the definition of dance. They view videos of various dances, compare/contrast the dances viewed, categorize a list of words about dance on a handout, write journal responses, and perform dance...
Curated OER
Dance Sequences and Phrases
A series of lessons about dance would be a great addition to your physical education class. Straightforward as well as creative, it teaches the basic skills of dance movement. A rubric helps guide the dancers to let them know what steps...
Curated OER
Analyzing Two Dances and Making a Dance Map: The Nutcracker
Young scholars discuss dance elements and create a dance map. They choose a dance theme and incorporate movement into their dance maps and choreography. They also experiment with different types of music.
John F. Kennedy Center
Baila! Latin Dance in the Spanish Classroom
One, two, three. One, two, three. Invite your language learners to practice the steps for researching and presenting information. Each small group has the task of explaining one Latin dance in full detail.
Curated OER
Creative Dance - Element of Space
Fourth graders perform and demonstrate locomotor and non-locomotor movements, while using various dance pathways and levels, incorporating the element of space.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Theme and Variation
The dance elements of body, energy, space, and time are the focus of a lesson on movement and theme. The class follows along as the teacher shows them a new dance that has a theme. They practice the dance, and then change one element in...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Making Dances From Stories
After reading a short story, learners will create dances that show homophones and verbs. Their dance sequences involve three verbs and transition movements in between each verb. Tip: Have the class dance out the sequence of events from...
Curated OER
Yellow Bird and Me
Upper elementary artists create works which demonstrate an understanding of the many elements of theater and the visual arts. This four-day plan combines many wonderful aspects of visual, musical, and theatrical arts into one very...
Curated OER
Dancing through Poetry
Get your class up and moving as they explore how to express movement and dance through words. Designed around two poems by Lillian Morrison about break dancing, the activity truly captures the creative and multi-sensory aspects of...
Curated OER
Ballet and Classical Music
Fourth graders explore ballet. In this dance and music humanities lesson plan, 4th graders practice ballet positions and play a card game using French ballet vocabulary. Students count beats in rhythm patterns and listen to classical...
Curated OER
Chance Art: Pollock, Cage and Cunningham
Students clearly identify commonalities and differences between dance and other disciplines with regard to fundamental concepts such as materials, elements, and ways of communicating meaning.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
What’s My Vocabulary Word?
The elements of dance can be used to communicate thoughts and, in this case, words. In small groups, the class first creates a set of movements to show a single word. Then, they extend their movements to show a three-word phrase....
Curated OER
Clerihew Dances II
Third graders explore rhythm and quality of word and phrased to that of dance. They move to the rhythm of poetry.
Curated OER
James Wyeth: Capturing Dance
Students draw portraits of a dancer. In this visual-arts lesson, students study the work of James Wyeth online. They then watch a dance performance and sketch 10 - 15 pieces depicting dancers. Five of these sketches will be selected for...
Curated OER
Weather Dance
Students study weather and focus on specific dance concepts. They are introduced to different ty es of clouds and how they are formed. Next, they study wind and why it occurs.
Curated OER
The Water Cycle: States of Water
Elementary schoolers explore states of matter by concentrating on the ways in which water moves between its solid, liquid, and gaseous states in a variety of Earth environments. Learners interpret these movements through dance. The...
Curated OER
Dance the Beat
Students study the artwork of Keith Haring to identify his style and techniques used to represent movement of the human body. They observe each other's movements while dancing to lively music. Students represent each other's postures and...
Curated OER
Shall We Dance?
This four to five day mini dance unit has many components. Discussion on what makes a good dance partner, research on famous dancing pairs, as well as learning a choreographed piece in class. The class learns a short dance sequence and...
Curated OER
Landscapes of the Mind
Students review Emily Dickinson's biography and examine themes and forms of some of her poems. They measure ways Graham integrates aspects of Dickinson's life and the themes and forms of her poetry into Letters to the World.
Curated OER
The Dance of the Butterfly
Students explore butterfly life cycles and movement. In this integrated fine arts and biology life cycle instructional activity, students listen to the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and identify the related life...
Curated OER
Rhythmic Movement
Explore how waves move in the ocean with your young learners. Fill a two-liter bottle half full with colored water, and have the youngsters move the bottle to make waves inside of it. Then have them listen to the song "Wipe Out"....
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Machines
What do science and dance have in common? Simple machines, work, and force! First, children discuss machines, wheels, inclined planes, and wedges. They create inclined planes with their bodies and make up dances about wheels and wedges....