making school subjects fun through dance

You can make math dance?!?!  Yes, we can!  I will show you how, and we'll create a great class dance together.  If you want a math residency,  here are some topic ideas:

• K- Greater Than/Less Than, Addition 1-20, Subtraction
• 1/2: Part/Part/Whole, Congruent/Symmetrical, Fraction Basics (Whole, Half, Fourths)
• 3-5: Multiplication (Arrays, Factors, Multiples), Angles (Acute, Obtuse, Right), Lines (Parallel, Intersecting, Perpendicular)

Science and dance are a natural fit.  Systems, patterns, cause and effect can all be covered through dance.  Here are some topic ideas:

• K-2: Life Cycles, Habitats, Ecosystems
• 3-5: Water Cycle, Solar System, Forces
• 6-8: Newton's Laws of Physics, Cells, Chromosomes

If you think of choreographers as inventors, then there's lots of possibilities.  Can students “engineer” a dance that educates their audience about important civics/social science topics?  Students can cover topics like:

• wealth/scarcity
• consequences of cooperation/conflict
• differing perspectives
• role of citizens in a government
• bias/injustice/discrimination/stereotypes

Stuck in a chair reading for Language Arts?  Get moving instead!  

• K: Characters, Setting, Adjectives 
• 1-2: Beginning, Middle, End, Problem/Solution, Comparing Two Versions of Same Story, Theme
• 3-5: Fables/ Folktales, Narrative Writing, Sequencing, Moral

Too many people think History is boring, in my opinion.  I actually have a B.A. in History, so I love it when I get to combine my love of history with my passion for dance. Students get to bring History to life, bonus!  

• Some topic ideas include Causes of the American Revolution
• The strengths/weaknesses of the Mayans, Incans, and Aztecs

Dance is a natural teacher of many social/emotional lessons.  Here are some topics we have covered:

• Citizenship
• Cooperation/Teamwork
• Growth Mindset
• Adaptability

The Kindergarten students at Scouter's Mountain were struggling with the concept of subtraction.  After my dance residency, their teacher told me they all scored As on their subtraction tests.  

The second grade teachers at Free Orchards Elementary wanted to focus on observations of nature and seeds, but their kids also needed more help with adjectives and adverbs.

The staff at Lenox Elementary  decided to focus on Language Arts for their whole-school residency.   We started with this framework, then tweaked content for each grade.

The Solar System has been a popular choice for 5th grade teachers.  For this class, I was asked to focus on model-building, so our student showcase culminated in  a student-performed, dancing model of our solar system.  

The science staff at Arbor School of Arts and Sciences wanted to prepare their students for an invention challenge.  The teachers asked me to focus on the concepts of collaboration and revision.  The students created dances, gave each other feedback, and performed them.  They created some really cool dances.  (It was awesome!)

At the middle school level, physics can get really fun.  Newton's Laws come to life in small group dance games.  When they are stacked together, these games become student-created choreography.  It might take a while to warm them up, but the reward is great when I see the students begin to shed their inhibitions.