When we were first told we needed to create a lesson that combined dance and science, we were stumped. How on earth is that going to work? But after some brainstorming, the dance and science activity we created was a lot of fun. We chose the grade 5 topic of Properties of Matter & Changes in Matter. For us this made the most...

Mirroring and Flocking were my two favourite activities in dance class and I feel that they go together hand in hand.  Firstly, mirroring is a great baby-step leading towards flocking. Mirroring is very easy to implement and introduce to new dancers, but can also be used as a tool for more experienced dancers.  Mirroring involves paying attention to your partner and trying to...

My first experience with dance teaching in a school setting was through the MOVE Conference for physical education where I was introduced to the Groove workshop. Groove is a dance education workshop that can work with both physical education as well as the arts.  The Groove philosophy fits very well within the creative process as the number one rule is  "You can't get...

Teaching dance is not something that is new to me. My first experience with teaching dance was when I was 15 years old and I was working at the dance studio I was a part of my entire life. I was teaching ballet and jazz to little kids who wanted to be there to dance, and many of them had already taken other...

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is one of my all time favourite books to study. It is a wordless story of a man who leaves his wife and child behind in a poor country in order to find a new life in a new world. This new world is strange and bizarre and the drawings are created intentionally odd to display how irregular...

For my fourth blog post I wanted to talk about two of my all time favourite activities. These are the ones that I look back on and know for sure I want to use in my own classroom someday. Besides both of them being extremely awesome, the only thing they really have in common is the fact that they involve CHAIRS. Instead of...

It was easy to pick the theme for my first drama lesson with my grade 5s. What was going to keep them engaged? What was going to be interesting to them? Easy,  heroes.  Kids LOVE Superheroes.  Correction: Everyone loves superheroes!  When creating my first drama lesson for my students, I was a little nervous. I have such little background in drama, how was...

Poetry is not everyone's favourite subject. In fact, I would argue that there are many students, and even adults out there, that really really dislike poetry. Poetry is definitely something that is not easy to teach. How do we get students to discuss the thoughts and feelings evoked by a certain poem? That's where drama comes in. For our drama presentation we combined...

To start off my Drama Portfolio, I'm going to start from the very beginning. Not the first week of classes beginning, but the thing that takes place at the beginning of every good drama lesson..  The Warm Up  Everyone knows that an athlete needs to do a good warmup before doing a physical exercise. But did you know that actors and actresses also...

This week in our online modules, we looked at math in life as well as math and technology. I think that currently, students are very easily able to see the connections between technology and mathematics. They are likely aware that it takes many mathematical concepts to create the iPods, cellphones, and computers that they all use on a regular basis. I do, however,...