Dance K to 1
Dance and Society

It is expected that students will:

• demonstrate an awareness of a variety of dances that exist
• demonstrate an awareness of a variety of reasons why people dance

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Dance and Society in other grades click on an icon below.

• Provide opportunities for students to practise or observe, through live performances or video, dances from cultures represented in the local community. Have students select one dance and list its unique characteristics. Students can illustrate the dance or fabricate simple props and costumes for it (e.g., button blankets for an Aboriginal dance, a dragon for a Chinese New Year dragon dance, crepe paper ribbon for ribbon dances). Then they re-create portions of the dance, incorporating their props and costumes.
• Discuss with the class the reasons for dance in various cultures (e.g., to celebrate weddings and holidays; for religious ceremonies; for fun; to establish identity). Show pictures from books to illustrate these purposes. Provide opportunities for students to participate in one of these dances.
• Create a class dance collage by having students cut out magazine and newspaper pictures portraying dance and then glue them onto a large sheet of paper. Ask students to comment on the images they see. Record their comments to add to the collage.
• After students have learned a variety of dances, create a class pictograph to illustrate their favourites, using a stick figure or photograph to represent each dancer. Use questions to focus discussion. (e.g., How many dances can you remember? Do you prefer certain dances to others? If so, why?) Help students summarize the findings and share them with a buddy class.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

• After students have had many opportunities to observe and re-create dances of various cultures, ask them to perform their favourite dances. Ask students to complete (using words or pictures) sentence stems such as:
  • This is me doing my favourite type of dance. It is called ---------- .
  • I like it best because ---------- .
  • The people in this culture do this dance because ---------- .
  • I like to dance because ---------- .
• When students finish their dance collage, invite their older buddies to the classroom. Ask students to tell their buddies everything they have learned about the different dances represented on their collage. Ask the older buddies to write in the younger students' journals the students' responses to sentence prompts such as:
  • What I've learned about dances is ---------- .
  • One connection I can make between the dances shown on the collage and me is ---------- . Collect the journals and look for evidence that students are able to accurately identify the various dances represented in their collage and to make personal connections between the dances in the collage and their own lives.
• After students have learned a variety of dances, ask them to individually describe and perform their favourites. Ask students to illustrate their dances and to share why they chose them by using the following sentence stem: "This is me performing my favourite dance. It's my favourite because ---------- ." Collect students' drawings and responses and note their abilities to name dances accurately and to provide logical reasons for their choices. Create a dance Big Book of the illustrations, including any photos of students dancing.

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