Dance Reflection

What?
When I think of "the arts", dance is the form that comes to mind last, or at least it used to.  I wasn't aware of how useful and beneficial children's creative dance can be in the classroom.  It allows students to be incredible expressive and creative and imaginative.  I learned many different ways dance can be incorporated into lessons and how it can be a teaching tool.

So What?
Learning about this art form before field might change the way I approach my lesson plans.  It has gotten my mind going as far as how I can add creative movement and dance into one or two of the lessons I will teach while in field.  For field, we're only focusing on the area of Social Studies, but there are many subject areas that dance can be used in.  I could research and find dances that come from certain cultures or time periods, and that would work wonderfully to mix dance into my field experience.

Now What?
As a future educator, I need to keep up on the breatkthroughs in the arts and education.  I need to let my own creativity and imagination go and explore, so that I can help my students foster and use their own creativity.  At times, I think/have thought that dancing is just a silly thing that makes people let lose and laugh a little. To incorporate this into my future practices, I need to remember the real and true advantages of dance in the classroom and not just that it's fun.

And...
As always, this project was great and is something that I plan on referring to when I am an actual teacher.  I feel as though this was one of the easier assignments, which was nice seeing as how field is right around the corner.  To be honest, I don't feel as though I contributed much to my group.  I feel like my other group members took charge and told me what to do, which worked for me.  In working with multiple people with multiple visions and ideas, I have learned that sometimes things don't turn out exactly how you might think they should.  I personally would have gone in a different direction, but I believe in being a team player and my group and I still came up with a good presentation.