Dance #5

Dance
I was a little nervous about the dance segment of this class. I am not very coordinated, although I always wished I could have been a dancer. I love to watch dance, I just don't feel like I am talented in it. After the first lesson, with the Where the Wild Things Are activity I changed my mind about dance in the classroom. I think it is a very cool thing to incorporate and I want to be able to use it in my classroom. After watching the movie on the last day or class I feel that movement, and all the arts, are VERY important to incorporate in the classroom. It makes me sad that lots of schools and districts and cutting out the arts. That is just a disadvantage to the children. I am still nervous about using a lesson in field, but we are going to do it! Hopefully we can make a dance/movement lesson fit with what we are teaching. I need to be more confident in my capabilities so that my students will feel more confident in what they are asked to do.
I enjoyed the group project, although we did struggle coming up with an idea. Once we got together and came up with the idea, it was easy from there on out.

Music #4

Music is very important to include in the elementary classroom. It has been proven to help the brain focus better and it also helps the memory to listen to music. I learned that writing a song according to curriculum is really tough! I also learned that folk songs are not being taught in schools anymore and they should be. I learned that we have a lot of creative, musical people in our cohort as well as putting curriculum to music can be very helpful for students.

I will use music in my future classroom, even though I am not a singer at all! I have always loved music and thought it was important to have in my life. Teaching music to children helps them with rhythm and patterning as well as focusing the brain.

I plan to learn the folk songs better so I can teach them to my class as well as practicing my singing so I can help my students.

My experience was good with this project. We were all a little scared to go ahead and start writing the song but once we got started it was fun. We did a great job and our song was catchy and cute. I have learned a lot about working in teams. It is hard, but as long as everyone is willing to do their part it always turns out good. More ideas come with more people. I will be more sensitive to my students when I ask them to work in teams and realize that it is not the easiest thing to do. I always struggled with it as a student because I am a little more shy, but I have learned a lot this semester by working in groups.