Dance with Ms. MacGregor

Newsletters:
• January 2013 Newsletter
• November 2012 Newsletter
• October 2012 Newsletter

PreK students, we’ll create a “Jungle Boogie Warm Up” which corresponds with the sequence of the alphabet; each letter has an animal counterpart, each animal has its own special movement. We’ll also explore imagination and story dances, Challenges and Balances, and movement-based songs.

Kindergartners create their own Jungle Boogie Warm-Up, make a human alphabet with body shapes, and begin Language of Dance Motif Writing. We’ll create a Leaf Dance, a Snow Dance, a Seed Dance. We’ll focus on locomotion and motor skills.

First Graders will create a Brain Dance Warm-Up, following human movement from the most simple (Breath) to most complex (Crossing Movements and Balancing). We’ll wiggle and jiggle, bend, clap, twist, and spin! We’ll work on Leaf, Snow, and Seed Dances and do a shadow unit.

Second Graders will create their own Brain Dance Warm-Up, explore partnering relationships in dance, improvising and practicing with mirroring, shadowing, echoing, and the “dance conversation.” We’ll make unique partner shapes and create mini-duets.  

Third Graders will progress from partnering explorations to experiencing a sampling of world and social dances. Our focus will remain on how people have historically used dance to communicate. We’ll also explore architecture, designing and creating different structures with our bodies.

Fourth Graders will work on a jazz- and modern dance- based technical warm-up.  We’ll delve into action word movement analysis, categorizing action words that can color our movements in very distinct ways. We’ll choose our own action words and create and perform “movement sentences.”

Fifth Graders will begin with a Hip Hop and Body Percussion focus, creating their own definitions of dance, working toward a “class dance.” We’ll analyze and discuss master dance works, and compare and contrast the vast array of dance genres.