Lesson 4

AMERICAN SYMBOLS

This lesson was one of my favorites, and it seemed to be one of the children's favorites as well! The focus was on American Symbols, specifically the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, the Bald Eagle and the American Flag. I started by warming them up, performing locomotor movement that they were not familiar with. They were ready for the challenge.

As the children sat around me, we looked at four different pictures of these American symbols previously mentioned. We talked shortly about each one, to remind them of the background behind these symbols and what they represent. From there, we danced!

For the Statue of Liberty we made shapes, starting simple we one arm straight and one arm bent. That developed to become any body part straight and any body part bent. We also made pointy shapes, like her point crown. For the Liberty Bell, we moved in swinging and sustaining ways like a bell. In the middle of our swings, we would make crooked shapes, to represent the cracks in the bell. When dancing the Bald Eagle, we moved across the space, leaping as high as possible with our arms spread wide. Finally, for the American flag, the girls stood still and straight as the boys moved around them in wave-like movement. Then we switched.

After we explored these symbols through movement we came back to sitting. Those who were well behaved picked out of a bag both locomotor movement from the warm up and symbols from the movement exploration. We put these pictures in order, and created a dance. The dancers performed the sequence of movement their very best!