Academic Excellence Through, With, and In the Arts and Technology”          

Mrs. Whipp’s Dance News

9/14/09

K-2

Everyone has learned the basics of “Being a STAR in Dance.”  S is for Safe: We put on a magic bubble/force field when we dance so that no one bumps into anyone or anything. T is for Thoughtful: We raise hands for permission to speak instead of blurting out. A is for Accountable: We dance when it is our turn and follow the teacher’s directions. R is for Respectful: We are learning to take turns and give our respectful attention to the ones who are dancing when it is not our turn. We have been working on counting in our warm up exercises, doing rhyming action words, identifying & making different body shapes, and using scarves for various activities. My 2^nd graders are even using their scarves to create dances about water pollution.

3^rd Grade

My third grade students have learned several folk dances: “The Shoemaker’s Dance” & “The Blacksmith’s Dance” are both from Germany.  “Sasha, Sasha” is from Russia. “The Hora” is from Israel and “Hurry, Scurry” is from Sweden.  We are creating our own original folk dance by using bits of each dance we learned and putting it to some Louisiana music. We will be performing it at the 3^rd grade Showcase. It will begin promptly at 1:30 pm and end by 2:10 pm on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 on the Cafeteria stage.  Parents are invited to attend.

4^th Grade

We are finishing our first dance project, “Step On the Beat.”  We learned about rhythm patterns, jazz walks, some tricky diagonal pathways, and have worked hard on memorizing longer sequences of movements. We will be performing it for our Pre-K and a few select 1^st grade classes later this week. If you are available on Wed. September 16 at 2:30 to help with our performance for the little ones, please email me: cfwhipp@lpssonline.com. 

5^th Grade

On Friday, September 18, during our 8:45-9:35 class we will be video taping our Native American dance, “Totem Pole.”  We created movement phrases from Plains Indian sign language.  The students formed six different totem poles made up of animal figures. When the dance begins, each animal introduces themselves using sign language. We added other phrases of movement based on Indian dances. We will be showing the dance video to all of the 5^th grade classes.  Following this, we will begin working on The Nutcracker, our 5^th grade performance which will be on Dec. 17.  It may seem early, but there are five different dances to learn for this show and five different sets of costumes to make or purchase!

If you are available to help me video on Friday or want to help measure students for costumes for the Winter Showcase, please email me: cfwhipp@lpssonline.com.