Dance K to 1
Presentation and Performance

This sub-organizer contains the following sections:
Prescribed Learning Outcomes
Suggested Instructional Strategies
Suggested Assessment Strategies
Recommended Learning Resources

Prescribed Learning Outcomes

It is expected that students will:

demonstrate a willingness to perform dance

demonstrate respect for the contributions of others

demonstrate an awareness of appropriate performance skills and audience etiquette

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

Suggested Instructional Strategies

Assign or have students choose partners. In each pair, ask student A to demonstrate a movement and student B to mirror the action. Provide time for students to practise to music. Invite pairs of students to perform their movements for the class.

As a class, discuss positive ways that performers behave during a performance (e.g., focussing on the task, showing enjoyment, showing consideration for their audience) and then create a class word map of these traits. Repeat the activity, with audience behaviour as the focus (e.g., not fidgeting, not talking, concentrating on the performance). Remind students of these skills before attending a live performance. After the performance, ask students to draw pictures of audience members and performers displaying appropriate or inappropriate behaviour.
Have each student create a simple movement pattern and teach it to a partner. Suggest that the student pairs then work with other pairs to combine and practise their patterns and to present the results to the class.
Review with the class the performance skills that are appropriate for dance (e.g., showing enjoyment, staying on-task). Then have half the class perform a learned dance while the rest observe. Ask audience members to identify the performance skills demonstrated by the performance ensemble. Invite students to reverse roles. Discuss as a class how it feels to be the performer and how it feels to be the audience.
Use a language process to teach students a dance that they will then perform. Before they perform the dance, ask students to discuss how they feel about performing, and record their responses. Repeat the discussion after their performance. Use this process over time, tracking changes in students' attitudes.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

Following a class activity designed to teach appropriate audience behaviour, ask students to work with partners to role-play one skill (e.g., focussing on the performance, not talking, showing enjoyment). Ask the pairs to present their role plays to the class. Invite students to guess the skill each pair is demonstrating. During the role-play presentations, collect evidence that students are demonstrating appropriate audience behaviour.
Ask each student to create a simple movement pattern and teach it to a partner. Then have each student pair combine its patterns, practise them, and present them to the class. Invite the class to copy each pattern. Look for evidence that student performers:
- accurately create patterns and reproduce them
- have learned their partners' patterns
- willingly demonstrate their patterns Note the extent to which students in the audience are able to:
- acknowledge the contributions of others
- demonstrate appropriate audience behaviour
- accurately identify the patterns presented by others
After students have had many opportunities to perform for one another, ask them to self-assess by responding to sentence stems such as:
- It is easy for me to show appropriate audience skills when----------- .
- It is hard for me to show appropriate audience skills when----------- .
- One thing I would like to get better at when I perform is ----------- .
- One thing I can work on when I am in the audience is ----------- .
- When I performed I felt -----------.
Have students record their responses in their journals. Invite each student to present one response to the class.