Get Them Dancing!

When I started at my school, one of my tasks would be to lead an all school square dancing night. This night is a big fundraiser for our school. The PTA puts together food that families can purchase. Some years it has been a chili feed, other years, hot dogs, and we have a book fair the same night. Each grade level learns a dance to perform on stage as the live entertainment while parents/families eat. After they are done dancing, they can head over to the book fair to find some great new books.

This was a bit daunting to me at first because I really didn't know a lot about folk dancing, but luckily they always do a folk dancing special topics during the Kodaly Certification program and two years ago they added a community Folk Dancing Night to KMEA, so I have been able to pick up some new dances that way.

Two years ago Peter and Mary Alice Amidon led the folk dancing night for KMEA and I purchased several of their resources while I was there.

Usually I have favorites that I use again and again, like Alabama Gal "Come Thru' Na Hurry," "Down in the Valley," and "Jump Jim Joe," but I am branching out and trying some new ones with my kids now that I feel more comfortable with the calls.

While I usually have my fifth graders present a traditional square dance, I don't restrict myself to that with all the grade levels because I think that children should get to experience dancing in ALL KINDS of formations and because square dancing limits you to multiples of eight and it often leaves students sitting out.

Comment ça va?  is one of the new ones I am trying. It is a circle dance from Sashay the Donut. It is a fancy version of Bastringue. I really like it because it introduces "corners" in addition to partners. Students will quickly have to go from Allemande corners, to Dosido partners, back to Allemande corners, and then to Promenade.

These dances are PERFECT to do right after a long break to get kids moving and listening!

As we learn the dances, I teach the students the calls and what the steps of the dances are called. I put up a Movement/Folk Dancing specific word wall to reinforce this vocabulary. Having the vocabulary and having students recall the steps using the vocabulary has been a really powerful tool in my room to help them learn the dances.

What are your favorite folk dances?

If you are looking for more folk dancing inspiration, head to my Folk Dancing Pinterest Board:

Making Music Interactive and a Music Teacher Facebook Frenzy

Happy Wednesday,

I am linking up today with I'm Lovin' Lit's Thursday Throw Down: Ways to Make Learning More Interactive with ways to make music more interactive plus a link to some cute interactive notebook ideas for music teachers.

Usually when I think about the word "interactive" I think about technology and interactive notebooks. I haven see some really cute ideas for music interactive notebooks at Emily's blog The Sweetest Melody, but I haven't really taken the interactive notebook plunge in my music room yet (future goal for sure!).

Picture from The Sweetest Melody

Picture from The Sweetest Melody

But looking at the word, something else comes to mind.

DANCING!  and more specifically, square dancing!

There are some wonderful square dance and folk dances that you can find. I use a lot of resources by the Amidons for my students. 

When you are square dancing, you are have to listen and respond to the music (or the caller) as well as communicate (mostly non-verbally) to your partner, corner, and the other members of your square.

At my school we do a HUGE Kansas Day celebration and part of that evening is folk dancing and square dancing. Each grade performs a dance on the stage for the parents. I really want to expand this in the future to a community folk dance night, but until I get really comfortable with teaching the dances, I will just stick with the kids! :)

This is such a great, interactive way to make those connections between music and dance and preserve a part of our culture and heritage. My kids LOVE to dance, and my fifth grade boys even beg for it!

I cannot count the valuable social aspects, especially when you start early. Dancing becomes a part of their culture. They forget about the opposite sex and cooties and just have fun and try to keep up. 

If you don't have your kids dancing in the music room yet, I highly suggest trying it out! 

If you are already dancing with your kids, you might be interested in this movement and folk dancing word wall. I use it to reinforce terminology that is new to them such as "longways set", "allemande", "dosido" and lots more! 

Here are a few sample pages:

Are you a music teacher on TPT? We are currently searching for some music teachers to take part in a Facebook Frenzy in early December. Here's a little info on how it works. Basically it's an organized Facebook event that is held during a weekend where teachers offer a free item via an application that is downloaded to your business facebook account. It cannot be something that is currently offered in your TPT store. This means that anyone who comes to get your freebie simply has to "like" your facebook page, and then there is a direct link to the next music teacher's facebook page once they have grabbed your freebies. Its a great way to build up followers and collaborate with music teachers around the world. 

The requirements for this frenzy are you have to offer a Winter/Christmas themed freebie and you must have a facebook business account (if you don't have one, now would be a great time to set one up!). 

If you are interested in joining the Music Teachers Facebook Frenzy follow this link:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=29363

This is a preliminary sign up, just to make sure we have enough music teachers to participate. A real sign up will follow soon!

If you are not on TPT and want to get started, here are some tips. Feel free to use my referral link. I'd be happy to help you get your store up and running in any way that I can! Just copy and paste this into your browser. It will look like the normal TPT site, but it tracks that it is from my referral link.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:LJervis

If you're not interested in selling, you may still be interested all of the fantastic freebies that will be available during the frenzy so make sure that you are following my Facebook page, Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom or blog so you don't miss out!

Happy Thursday,

Lindsay