Virtual Dance Workshop: Artful Animals in Action

Objectives:
After engaging with this program, students will be able to:
*Detect and identify animals portrayed in works of art
*Understand and explain that there are many different types of animals
*Use their bodies to represent special features or characteristics of some animals, including animal movements, behaviors, and activities
*Create and perform a short dance that strings together movements in a sequence
*List some words that describe ways that animal move, such as swimming, flying, hopping, prowling, galloping, leaping, stretching, waddling, pecking, crawling

Program Outline:
*Intro (5 min): Welcome, intro instructor, overview of Hillwood, and intro to theme: animal statues/animal movements
*Warm Up (5 min): Prepare body for movement–warm-ups relate to the animal theme (bear crawls… ‘ants go marching’ dance… ‘caterpiller crawl’ dance…
*Game (5 min): “Magic Animal Sculptures/ Animal Freeze Dance” Move the animal the instructor names & freeze when the music stops
*Activity #1 (10 min): “Spot the Animal Sculpture”–Find & identify the hidden animal sculpture, then move like that animal
*Activity #2 (5 min): Animal Adjectives—choose words that describe the type of animal in the statue (dogs are furry; swans are curvy; squirrels are quick…)
*Activity #3 (10 min): “What’s in the Bag?” Instructor pulls objects out of a bag & students relate feature of the object to feature/characteristic of a particular animal/animal (In the bag: Something furry…. What animal is furry?…; In the bag: Something hard…. What animal has a hard shell?) Students accumulate movements to create an animal dance sequence.
*Closing (5 min): Review what we did; students share their favorite part/what they learned; do a goodbye song and cool down butterfly stretch