April 24, 2009
Week 4
Monday at CNCA was much the same as last week. It was only my second visit to the site, and but even returning was more welcoming and I am even more excited to explore new teaching ideas and techniques with this class for a few weeks at the end of the quarter.
Thursday at GCS was interesting, as we continued on in the Native American unit. After warm-up and a review of what we learned last week, moving across the floor we asked the students to “communicate” something.
“Native Americans use dance to communicate with each other and Mother Earth” has become the mantra of this unit, and teaching the vocabulary (only ‘communicate’ actually) was interesting through dance. We focused on encouraging the students to utilize their entire body and to dance with conviction. We finished the class with drum circle; one student played a rhythm on the drum in the center, and the rest of the class beat out the rhythm on their bodies and the floor. I continue to learn teaching strategies and classroom management ideas even though at the moment I have not been integrating my own lesson plans this quarter.
I contacted Stephanie and I’m still not sure who to contact to look for more information on Native American dance, however I’m not sure if that will be necessary. I’ll speak more with Chippy and Stephanie this weekend.
