Movement & Dance Part 4

Learning. I'm learning! This summer I've spent learning. Learning about how to connect my blog to a bigger world. I still have a lot to learn! Yet my efforts are working!!! Welcome to my slice of the rainbow!! If this is your first visit -- I'm so very thrilled that you've found me, found us!! We're in the midst of an awesome interview with Connie Dow, author of  Redleaf's "One, Two What Can I Do?" and national expert on dance + movement for children. 

Connie is in the midst of sharing her 7 benefits of incorporating dance + movement into the lives of children. (I personally feel these are benefits for the whole of the human species, but we won't split hairs here.) 

Connie, thanks for being so patient with my blogging format. Please continue.

2^nd Benefit: Curriculum Enrichment

"One example of how movement can easily align with the Core strategies is to be found under the Learning and Experiences and Environment category:  Children learn best through play and concrete experiences that are tied to familiar aspects of their world.  Through movement, children can experience a concept in their bodies and learn the concept kinesthetically.  (See the earlier example about learning the concepts of opposites in a game about fidgeting by clicking here.)

Another example from this Learning Experiences and Environment category from the Core Knowledge and Competencies points to the importance of nurturing curiosity, thinking, and problem solving skills.  Movement activities are the perfect forum for imaginative play and individual and group problem-solving tasks

Ohio’s Early Learning Content Standards can also easily be addressed through movement specifically for dance in the ODE Fine Arts Academic Content Standards, one of the benchmarks for Kindergarten is for the children to: 'Invent movement phrases that use the elements of dance, space, time, force, and body.'

Movement time is learning time, and can be used to teach virtually any subject, crossing all learning domains. Movement can supplement another lesson, and can be used in short bursts, in transitions, and in games to get the children settled down for a quieter activity, as well as an entire lesson built around a theme. Simple and inexpensive props, such as streamers, scarves, simple costumes, music and other art forms can be incorporated along with movement."

Tell us more!! Tell us more!!! Go Connie, Go Connie!!

3^rd Benefit:  Physical Development

"Movement development in young children mirrors brain development in infants.  There is a body of work on this subject called Brain Dance, being developed in Seattle by Ann Green Gilbert.  Her basic premise is that through a specific series of simple movements, we can tap into the parts of the brain that are stimulated in the same order and patterns as they were during brain development. Green Gilbert is a proponent of using these movements as a kind of brain/body warm up, one or more times a day, before a test, when children need a break, etc., and as a way to get the brain stimulated and the body moving.

Movement activities can make the learning of motor skills, such as marching, hopping, jumping, galloping, sliding (sideways galloping), and balancing fun and enriching.  And, once the children have mastered a skill, such as marching, you can use the elements of dance (the body, time, space, and energy), to create tasks around that motor skill, which helps reinforce the skill, and taps into the imagination as well. 

Taking the simple movement of marching as an example and using the elements of dance, you can say,  “Can you march backwards, sideways, low, high, in a circle, swinging your arms, could you march with only one foot?  What is that called?  Can you lie on your back and march with your feet?  Your arms?   Can you march making lots of noise with your feet?  Can you march looking like you are making a lot of noise, but being as quiet as a mouse?"

Guided movement fosters total body fitness. Young children are naturally active, but directed movement/dance present opportunities to expand and explore movement possibilities and skills. In addition, physical activity is always part of programs in the fight against obesity, such as the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative.

According to the website of the National Parent Teacher Association, despite mounting evidence that kids need an outlet to blow off steam, learn to interact with others and get the exercise they need, nearly 40 percent of American elementary schools have either eliminated or are considering eliminating recess.

National PTA President Anna Weselak, says “Children who are physically active do better in the classroom. The research tells us that even if it means a reduction in class time, providing more time for physical activity can lead to increased test scores.”

 Whooohoooooo we're on a roll now, give us just one more for today, Connie!!

4^th Benefit:  Social Development:

From NDEO, the National Dance Education Organization:

Movement is a good arena for children to work on problem-solving skills, cooperation and taking turns, listening and understanding, and working together as a group. Dance fosters social encounter, interaction, and cooperation.  Children quickly learn to work within a group dynamic.  Movement is communication, and many children may find movement time as their time to shine."

Wow!!! Are you smiling? I am!!! Thanks for this installation, Connie. Your concluding benefits will be posted tomorrow, in the words of my father, "God willin' and the creek don't rise."

The two of us are working diligently behind the scenes to polish off our NAEYC workshop outline. We only have a 60 minute slot which has the potential to make us a tad bit crazy. Having this conversation in the midst of our planning is a huge benefit to us. Thank you for your participation.

One more thought as I wind up this post. Today as I opened my email I received word that my song/book "Red, White and Blue" was ordered yesterday by these three amazing programs: Congregation for Humanistic Judasim of Fairfield County in Connecticut, The Children's Learning Center of Cartersville, Georgia AND the Imagine-osity Family Home Childcare & Preschool of Decatur, Alabama. Do you realize how thrilling that is? That's a lot of diversity in my inbox!! Makes my heart do leaping and sideways galloping -- known to some as sliding.

Thanks so much to my blogging buddies & mentors for holding my hand as I venture forward into the brave new cyber frontier on the horizon. As a result of all of your nudges & encouragement I have a much wider audience and children from Connecticut to Alabama will benefit. Only in early childhood could you craft a word like Imagine-osity for your business name!!!! [Honest-to-goodness, people I didn't make that word up! I think I need a trip to AL!]

P.S. The pictures of me-in-action in this post were from a library performance in Richland County, Ohio earlier this summer. Who knows how many times I've made the circuit for them? That's a library system that knows how to throw a summer reading program. I had 12 performances in 4 days time!!! 

****Remember, through the entire month of September, all orders of my newly award winning INDIE Award of Excellence picture book, "Red, White and Blue" can receive a 20% savings off the cover price by using the promo code: RWB911 at my website.

Movement & Dance Part 3

It's time to return to my on-going 'interview' with Connie Dow, author of Redleaf's new, "One, Two, What Can I Do?" and national expert on dance + movement -- specifically as those topics relate to our working with children. We're really thrilled about our upcoming collaborative presentation at NAEYC in Orlando!!!

I started this interview several weeks ago and you can read here for the initial installments. We then opened the blog comment-box and invited questions to be asked for Connie's reflection and expertise. The very first question came from a fellow national presenter, Vanessa Levin -- author over at Pre-K Pages, who asked on behalf of her own workshop participants:

"I work with a lot of teachers and I notice that some of them shy away from using movement and music in their classrooms because they feel "silly". If they have an assistant teacher or parent volunteers in the classroom they are embarrassed to do these types of things in front of them. What advice can you offer to teachers who struggle with this?"

(Editor's note. Vanessa just so happens to be featuring my book "Red, White and Blue" on her blog TODAY, but that's just a huge, delightful and amazing coincidence! LOL!!)

Before we hear from Connie-the-expert, here's my Debbie two cents........  As you can see, I LUV having the opportunity to work with children and delight at the opportunity to incorporate their creative movement response to my music. In fact, one of my all time favorite things is directing their movement in an open-ended and creative manner. My personal response to Vanessa's question is this: 

"ALWAYS LOOK AT THE CHILDREN!!!"

If you are the least bit self-conscious about moving/dancing in front of other adults, then don't look at them! Seriously, if the adults give you the heebie-geebies? Then don't look at them!!
Tune them out completely. Watch.The.Children.Only!! Make specific and genuine eye contact with your wee wonders and tune out any and all tall people hovering about along the edges. Just immerse yourself in the antics of the children and lose yourself in the midst of their fun! Voila! You're good to go!  

 

Now let's hear from the expert. Here's Connie's response.

Hello FFF (Fellow Friends and Fans) of Debbie,
"I am glad to have some specific comments and ideas to address for this blog post! Today I will respond to Vanessa."

"Vanessa, I understand your question about teachers that feel self-conscious when leading age-appropriate movement and music activities. What I would say is, when assistants or parents are observing, the most important thing they want to see is the children listening to the teacher and being engaged in learning. The best way to do that when leading a dance activity, of course, is for the teacher herself to be immersed in the activity, because the children will be much more likely to follow her lead.

Realizing that we all have that “other self” who can act like a child should make onlookers happy that the teacher can lose herself into the act of teaching regardless if others are there or not. The bottom line? We want the children in our care to be excited and engaged, and they will respond best to a teacher on their level both literally and figuratively! Enjoy the children's delight in movement. Use it to your advantage."

Connie, do you have further insight to share with us?
I would like the opportunity to list some reasons why I think that it is so important to stick with it and bring creative movement to your classroom. I want educators to be aware of the specific benefits of movement for the young child. Understanding the significance may help encourage teachers to get beyond their personal reservations. So I have listed and briefly explained what I consider seven of the principal benefits of movement & dance below:

1st Benefit: Body Awareness and Classroom Management

As children develop body awareness, teachers can use these skills for better classroom management. One of the gifts of structured movement for both student and the adults who work with them is that it helps children develop body awareness and control, which can be incorporated into the rest of the child’s daily routine. Moving is what children are already doing the minute they walk into a learning environment. Why not pick up on that and transition them right into learning? For example, make a game out of fidgeting! Here are three different ideas:


1.) Address numbers and counting: “Let’s count to 10 while we fidget, then freeze!
2.) Or to teach the concept of opposites kinesthetically: “Can we fidget fast, slow, high, low, big, little, forward, backward, right-side-up, upside-down?”
3.) Or a vocabulary lesson: “Can you think of another word for fidget? How about shake? Wiggle? Jiggle? Squiggle?” Show me how your body looks when it squiggles!

As you become more comfortable with guiding movement activities, these are some of the skills children will develop:

• Body Awareness (range of motion, balance, shape)
• Control of Speed (Tempo, stop/start, responding to cues for stopping)
• Control of Direction (Level, direction, floor pattern, size, spatial orientation)
• Control of Energy (Use of energy and flow to create a specific movement quality)
• Listening to and follow movement instructions
• Awareness of personal space and shared space

The above skills will benefit both students and teachers in your early childhood environment.

Connie, Mimi and moi!!

Back now to Debbie..... I promise to give you the rest of Connie's 7 benefits of movement/dance in the early childhood classroom. Honestly!! Come back daily till we get to the end of her list!!! Now go put on your silly pants, start shaking it, keep your eyes on the children, know what you're doing is important and have a good time!!!!

A reminder:  from now thru the end of September all orders of my newly winning national INDIE Award of Excellence picture book, "Red, White and Blue" can receive 20% off the cover price by using the promo code: RWB911 at my website http://www.rainbowswithinreach.com/  See the section on Carie's Kindergarten for their amazing response in quilt work to my book's quilted illustrations.

Talented 5th Graders!

These fifth graders have amazing capability and awesome range, as demonstrated by these photographs of their diversity in their work. The Van Gogh floral pieces are on one side of the hallway and these are just across the way. This project is based on the work of that of William H. Johnson. Of course I'm drawn to all of the patterns and the dynamic use of color by the students. I LUV seeing the finished pieces, but wish even more that I could have been a fly on the wall to see the work unfold. Can you tell that I miss my days being the Art teacher at Parkside Elementary? I loved directing my several hundred students to create this level of work.

Art in the Hall!!

Making an Artist-in-the-Schools visit is always a great day! Returning to one of my favorite places is something I look forward to all year long. One of the very best things about returning to my favorite kindergarten is that its in one of my favorite buildings. The way a 'building' becomes one of my favorites is based on the art in the hallways. This building has two art teachers!!! It shows! The halls are virtual art museums. Take a look at these fifth graders floral mater-pieces. Gotta LUV all this color!! Gotta LUV all of this design!!!

Jumpin' Jiminy Jamboree!!

These are pictures from my annual end-of-the-year visit to my favorite kindergarten classes in Westerville. The teachers have had me in their rooms every year for 6 or 7 years in a row!! They have worked with their students to introduce my songs and books long before I arrive, so I get to be a kindergarten rock-star!!

Now that I have jumped into Pinterest. I have made a two-shot collage to attempt to visually explain my song, "Jumpin' Jiminy Jamboree!" It's one of my top 10 favorites to do with this age group. We jump enthusiastically for 30 seconds followed by freezing frozen for the same length of time. I divide up that 30 seconds of frozen-ness into small subsections of funny face-making. By the end of the frozen section we are working on balancing on one foot while making our funny faces. Lots of proprioceptive feedback for those growing brains to integrate -- balance is all about knowing where your body is in space!!! In my JJJ the k-kiddos get it all: aliteration, oxygen rich movement, laughter, concept of 'opposities' created with a body-kinethetic, with a focus on proprioceptive fun!!! "That's a lot of bang for your brain buck!"

Now, I'm off to 'pin' this collage to my Jumpin' Jiminy board/collection of jumping inspiration!

Goats n' Boats n' Colors

It really is September and I have yet to add any pictures of goats-on-the-roof! I am so totally 'behind' in all of the chronical-ing of these last several months. Once I got behind with the trip to Europe I've never really caught up. This is what a walk downtown consists of -- even this late into the season, there's still color to be found. I have hundreds of daisies. I have hundreds of library concert pictures. I think I still have end of the year school visits that have yet to be documented: ye gads. What's a gal to do?

On the other hand.... I have been having a ball with Pinterest and now have 34 collections/boards and I entertain myself by thinking that these will really be an asset to teachers who have supported me by purchasing my materials. Please stop thru there (Pin-town) and then leave me a comment that you're appreciative.

It's September FIRST!

Today I've been in a reflective mood. It's September 1st. A hallmark of sorts. Something like New Year's Day.  It's a whole new beginning. A line in the sand. Before and after. Summer is over. It's September after all. School in earnest. I've spent the summer immersed in 'learning' about blogging. My efforts are showing progress. My stats indicate that I have doubled my previous readers-per-day. Plus there are exciting spikes in readership from referrals: very cool.

I am inspired to finish some silly little bits so that I can start fresh in this new season. With brand new readers I feel like I need to start at the beginning. With some introductions. My name is Debbie Clement. I grew up in a different era. We didn't have a DVD player in our family car. We didn't have a CD player -- we didn't even have a radio! So we sang. We told stories. We played ABC games using road signs and license plates. I've been a big fan of the license plate ever since and read them regularly. I'm Debbie Clement + I like MUSIC!!!

I write happy little fluffs that I call 'ditties' and then go about recording these little ideas of mine to share with children the world over. Then I go about singing my variations on EIEIO, sometimes as many as 29 times in a day (or so it would seem.) I get to visit in schools -- both 'pre' and 'elementary' sharing my scrappy-happy little zippy-bits with children young and younger!! I get to be a rock-star in school gymnasiums and library meeting rooms!!! Whooohooo it is indeed FUN2BME!!!

My degree is in Art + education and for the last several years I've been working at translating my songs into the traditional picture book format. I've gotten three picture books thru the publishing process! Yeah, Art degree!!! Yeah, liberal arts degree!! Yeah loving art! XOX ART!!Yeah getting to be an author and an illustrator!!! Yeah learning new things!!!! Yeah getting to present my ideas and projects at conferences across the country!! YeahYeahYeahYeah!!

I've been making the illustrations for my books from quilts I design and sew from fabric. How cool to add license plates to my collection that illuminate my life's details, interests and passions. That's QUILT DC (which could be Door County for some, or in my case Debbie Clement!) My first picture book is really:

I am grateful for so many things!!! I'm learning about HTML on the slowest learning curve possible! Can you believe it? Long time blog readers should be so proud of me for figuring out how to insert my paragraphs between my images -- this is a new aspect for me and as you can see I'm making progress. There is absolutely not one morsel about technology that comes intuitively to me. Absolutely nothing...... but if you know nothing else about me: I am persistent! This old dog is learning new tricks. Hurrah!! Isn't that WDRFULL?

This was the year that I got to go to EUROPE to work with the children of our troops stationed abroad!! We visited four of our Army bases in Italy & Germany!!! I got to see a morsel of Germany & present in classrooms & auditoriums there. I got to spend some amazing time in Italy!! I got to share my newest picture book, "Red, White and Blue" in both Germany & Italy! I got to work with teachers and families in both countries! We got to spend a weekend in VENICE, ITALY!!! I got to present my songs and ideas in Reggio Emilia to the Italian children.  And just last month I was awarded a national INDIE Award of Excellence for this project!! WE R BLSD!!!!!

By the numbers. We've been married 17 years. Between us we have 4 children and 7 grand-children. I really am GRAM IAM!! Our newest bundle of joy arrived to Planet eARTh just yesterday!!!!!! What a surprise to see it's a member for the pink team -- as they already had 3 boys under their roof in Colorado. Number 7 weighing in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces. Pretty sweet symmetry that one. That brings our wonder-peep total to 5 boys and 2 girls "All Together Now" [LOL: that's the title of one of my ditties, a favorite for many.] 

This is what it looks like when you mix all of these bits and pieces together: 

In this new blog-hopping fun, getting to know others I had a quick little FB message yesterday. In our quick 'cyber-conversation'  I mentioned something about my recovery process from Breast Cancer. She had no idea. I thought that was really great. I'm glad that this label SRVIVOR doesn't define me, but its just one tidbit in the over-all collage, but it is indeed one componant of the over-all collage. 

License plate collage: check. Painted vest: next up!! 

It's September first. What's on your to-do list? What projects are hovering in your unfinished box? What labels define you? What tidbits reflect you? Do you have hurdles that lie ahead? How do you get those murky could-do ideas get accomplished? What motivates you?? Probably the biggest joy of all in my blogging progress, is that more & more people are leaving comments here in the little comment box. How totally amazing is that? I LUV hearing from you!!! Please feel most welcome to drop me a line & tell me the license plate that would summarize your story.