Lesson 3

SUPER STORMS

This time around, I was able to integrate Super Storms into the lesson. I was excited for this lesson because of its specificity and clarity. I was confident the students would understand the content.
I always start the class the same way, going over the rules. They have memorized them by now.
From there, we danced! The students moved in the space, guided by my directions. Each movement represented parts of a storm (but they did not know that just yet). We started by rolling and jumping, then moved to sustained, swaying, spiraling movement. We also sloshed around, with loose muscles. Next, we froze in shapes and then leapt through the space.

After moving like this, we came back to sitting and looked at a poster board with the symbols of our movement. Together as a class we deciphered what storm we had just danced. The rolling and jumping represented warm air rising to the sky in a thunderstorm. The sustained and swaying movement represented wind, while the sloshing represented rain. Finally, the frozen shapes represented hail and the leaping demonstrated lightening. All of these movements built a thunderstorm.

We continued to do this with both hurricanes and tornados. We would perform the movement and then come back to sit down and discuss why we did what we did. At the end of the class, we played a game. We decided on a movement that represented each picture of the thunderstorm, hurricane, and tornado. All the students spread out and we began to play. As I help up each picture, the students would have to perform the movement we related to the storm.

Overall, I enjoy seeing the children learn and move at the same time. They seem to remember the content much better when we add movement to it. The next time I taught, I quizzed them on the symbols and storms for continuity.