Reflection #7 Creative Dance Wk #2

What has changed in your understanding of what creative children’s dance is, and why and how to use it in the classroom?

I believed that creative dance was something that took many years of practice to attain. I believed before this class that I would need to have my students bring dance equipment to school in order to participate that day. I know that it is just a movement that is done to represent what is being taught. I can see how this would really benefit my students in the classroom. A student will learn more from the movements than by having to remember all the words for the test. I really had to think hard to find out how to express myself with movement. I still remember well though what we were talking about in class because of it. It will be the same with my future students in my classroom.

So what will you be taking with you from your experience with creating, teaching and participating in creative dance lessons in class?

The one thing that I want to take with me is: I want to show the difference in dance and pantomime. I think that dance has more feeling with it. In class while the presentations were being done on dance, I had a hard time differentiating between the two. I want to teach my students that dance has more feeling involved with it. The more feeling that is portrayed in the dance the more I believe a student will retain.

Now what do you plan to teach your future students and how will you prepare for that?

I want to teach my students the curriculum mixed with dance included. I want to learn how to incorporate dance into all the subjects. I know that it just comes with practice, but I am a little apprehensive about using it for some of the subjects that I may teach. I can see using it it literature because we used it with a book in our presentations, but I would like to try and use it other ways too.