Instructor: Ashley Dashputre
Kindergarten
The Dance Program at Woodlawn is an integrated curriculum that couples key academic concepts learned in the student’s classroom with the elements of dance, principles of choreography and dance vocabulary through creative movement and improvisation.
The goal of the integration projects help students better understand the academic concepts in the classroom. A specific example for Kindergarten is learning about position words, shapes and creating patterns. Students are asked to show their knowledge of these concepts through practice in movement.
Emphasis is also put on proper warm-up techniques, safety and classroom etiquette in the dance classroom and on stage.
Students participate in two performances each school year. Students learn about aspects of production through these performances. Aspects include: developing a theme for the performance, aid in selecting music and movement choices, rendering costume possibilities, memorizing movement for the performance and understanding stage expectations, understanding the importance of marketing/advertising of the performance and finally reflecting on their experience through discussion and written explanation.