ENERGY LESSON

Today was a lot more difficult than the past two lessons. We were lucky enough to get the gym space again but the children were extremely energetic. They did not want to listen, or do ANYTHING I asked them to explore. about 10 min consisted of me trying to get everyone to stay inside the "boundaries" I set for the class. I had music prepared to go along with every subject of energy I was teaching but all I had to play was my little quiet computer, so I gave up on that idea after a while and went back to use my drum.

The lesson today had to do with opposites. I went over opposites like HOT and COLD, HAPPYand SAD, and LOUD and QUIET. Then I warmed them up by skipping around the gym and reviewing a few things from our last space class by making different shapes on different levels.

SMOOTH AND SHARP

we talked about finger painting and how smooth it is. We began by moving out hands then took it into our bodies. We smoothly moved around the room. Most of the kids laid on the ground and moved like snakes. I encouraged the kids to change levels and that helped spark their creativity.

SMOOTH

We then talked about how to be sharp. I had one student demonstrate what it would look like if they were to touch a cactus. They had a sharp movement and the class got excited. We practiced being sharp with our hands then took it into our bodies. The kids ran crazy! I had to really bring them together and calm them down. My time was running out so I had to skip over a lot of movement.

SHARP

We had to skip over the section of LIGHT and STRONG . I would have talked about muscles and how you can control how strong or light you are with your muscles. We would as a class explore each concept. Then we would enhance the skills by dancing strong when I play the drum loud and dance light when I play the drum soft.

STRONG

LIGHT

We were able to discuss FREE and BOUND. I had the students travel around the room as free flowing as a river. We would twist and turn and float through the classroom. Then I would signal my drum and they would freeze. They would hold a shape as if their river had frozen.

FREE

BOUND

We finished the class with half being watching eyes and half being dancers. We also divided the space into smooth, light and free land and the other half sharp, strong, and bound land. The dancers danced and the watching eyes had a paper and crayon and were asked to draw smooth lines when the dancers were dancing smoothly and sharp lines when the dancers were sharp. At the end of the class we looked at everyones pictures. We weren't able to switch but over all the class was smiling through the class and that makes me happy.