Performing Arts Highlights

Welcome to Performing Arts!

First Grade:

As students begin to inquire into communities we will use dramatic play to help us understand how communities work. Students will use role play and mock interviews to get to know the people in communities and how they interact. 

Students read the book "Frustrated Ninja?" and acted out feeling frustrated. Their partner used a scarf to pretend to be water to "put out the fire" of feeling. They would then give them a strategy to use to calm down. 

Second Grade:

Did you know that dance is good for the body and the mind? Second graders are figuring this out as they learn how to express themselves through dance while getting quite the workout! Currently, we are learning about the elements of dance: body, space, time, energy and relationship. 

Body - we learn about locomotor and non locomotor movement as well as body position and shape. 

Space - students made up dances using all levels: high, medium and low

Third Grade:

Third graders have been very surprised at the variety of cultural dances out in the world. Solo and group, with or without props, arms only, legs only, fast and slow... the ways in which cultures have expressed themselves through dance over time is vast. Students in third grade are learning about these dances and the history behind them. Some classes will create their own cultural dances at the end of the unit to represent themselves. Other classes will pick a dance to research and will teach the rest of the class about the dance. 

Students watched a gumboot dance from South Africa and recorded their observations. Then we learned about the history behind the dance. 

Fourth Grade:

As the fourth graders prepare for their living museums, we inquired into how we portray a character, especially someone who existed in real life. We played games to explore voice, body language and imagination. Students wrote a short monologue they could use for the living museum if they chose and practiced giving life to their character. They made choices about how their voice woud sound and how they would move based on the research they did. 

Below are students playing games to practice imagination. The first is called "Led by the nose". They had to pretend they had a peice of string attached to their nose and their partner led them around the room by the string. They used focus and energy to make it look like the string was really there. The second is a game of imaginary catch. Students agreed on the size, shape and weight of their ball ahead of time and then pretended to toss the ball around. 

5th Grade:

Throughout history, civilizations have used the arts to express their feelings about the events of their lives, positive or negative. As students learn about the industrial revolution, we inquired into the ways theatre reflected how people felt at the time. Overworked and in need of some fun and inspiration, many people turned to melodrama. Fifth grade students are taking their own struggles (homework, mean babysitters, unfair teachers/parents) and turning them into melodramatic skits.