Weather Moves K-1

WEATHER MOVES

WEATHER MOVES

Learning Description

In this lesson, students will explore how movement can represent different types of weather. Students will then choreograph a brief movement phrase that uses energy qualities to demonstrate one of the types of weather.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: K-1
CONTENT FOCUS: DANCE & SCIENCE
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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can identify the characteristics that make each type of weather unique.
  • I can represent the characteristics of each type of weather through appropriate movement qualities.

Essential Questions

  • What are the characteristics of different types of weather?
  • How can you use movement and tempo to represent the characteristics of different types of weather?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 1:

S1E1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate weather data to identify weather patterns.

  1. Ask questions to identify forms of precipitation such as rain, snow, sleet, and hailstones as either solid (ice) or liquid (water).

Arts Standards

Grade 1:

ESD1.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process.

 

ESD1.CR.2 Demonstrate an understanding of dance as a form of communication.

 

ESD1.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology in dance

 

ESD1.RE.1 Demonstrate critical and creative thinking in dance.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Kindergarten: 

K-ESS2-1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can use movement exploration to discover and create artistic ideas and works.

Anchor Standard 2: I can choreograph a dance.

Anchor Standard 3: I can perform movements using the dance elements.

Anchor Standard 7: I can relate dance to other arts disciplines, content areas, and careers.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Weather - The atmospheric conditions at a specific place and time, including factors such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind speed, and visibility. It can change rapidly and is influenced by various factors such as geographic location, time of year, and local topography; often described in terms of conditions like sunny, rainy, cloudy, stormy, or snowy

Arts Vocabulary

  • Movement phrase - A series of movements linked together to make a distinctive pattern
  • Choreography - The art of composing dances and planning and arranging the movements, steps, and patterns of dancers
  • Choreographer - A person who creates dances
  • Non-locomotor - This refers to a movement that does not travel through space
  • Locomotor - This refers to a movement that travels through space
  • Level - One of the aspects of the movement element space; in dance, there are three basic levels: high, middle, and low
  • Tempo - The pace or speed of movement

 

Energy qualities:

  • Swinging - Established by a fall of gravity, a gain in momentum, a loss of momentum, and the repeated cycle of fall and recovery, like that of a pendulum
  • Sustained - Smooth and unaccented; there is not apparent start or stop, only a continuity of energy
  • Percussive - The quality of movement characterized by sharp starts and stops; staccato jabs of energy
  • Vibratory - Quality of movement characterized by rapidly repeated bursts of percussive movements like “a jitter”
  • Suspended - Occurs in a moment of resistance to gravity, such as the instant in which a dancer hangs in space at the top of a leap
  • Collapsing - A quality of movement showing a release of tension, which can be performed at a fast or slow tempo. A slow collapse can be described as a melting or oozing motion.

 

Materials

  • Pictures that show different types of weather including sunny, rainy, thunderstorm, tornado, snowy, windy, foggy, etc.
  • Music to portray the feeling of different weather types
  • Weather riddles (one per group/pair)

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Begin by engaging students in movement that introduces students to the Elements of Dance: Body, action, space, time and energy.
    • Have students arrange themselves in the classroom with enough personal space to move freely without touching a neighbor.
    • Turn on instrumental music with a steady beat.
    • Element of Body - First, have students bring awareness to their bodies by leading them through gentle stretches starting from the head and moving to the toes (e.g., head circles, shoulder shrugs, toe touches, etc.).
    • Element of Energy - Now, direct students to explore energy variations with different movement qualities such as sharp movements–quick, precise actions like punches or snaps, and smooth movements–slow, flowing actions like waves or circles with arms.
    • Element of Space - Levels: Bring students’ attention to levels (high, middle, low) with movements such as stretching up high and moving on tiptoes, crouching in a small ball close to the floor, and bouncing in place at a middle level.
    • Element of Action - Locomotor/non-locomotor: Tell students that these movements they just performed were non-locomotor, meaning that they didn’t move to a new location. Direct students to perform a movement that requires moving from one place to another, such as step-together, step-together moving side to side.
    • Have students practice what they just learned by saying words such as “locomotor” and have students create a spontaneous locomotor movement.
    • Have students return to their seats or the carpet.

 

Work Session

  • Display a picture that depicts sunny weather.
  • Discuss with the students the type of weather shown and how they are able to determine the weather even though they aren’t physically there.
    • For example, what type of clothes are people wearing? What can we see in the sky?
  • Introduce students to different types of energy or movement qualities, such as sustained, percussive, suspended, swinging, collapsing and vibratory.
    • Model different movements and have students copy them. Say an energy word, such as collapsing, and have students create spontaneous movements that demonstrate this energy quality.
  • Next, introduce students to different tempos: Fast, moderate, slow.
    • Ask a student to demonstrate a movement.
    • As a class, practice the movement with a fast, moderate, and slow tempo.
  • Turn on upbeat music. Brainstorm ways to demonstrate sunny weather with movement. For example, upbeat, sustained energy, gestures that reflect rays of sunshine.
    • Ask students to volunteer to show examples of what sunny weather might look like to them. Facilitate an informal discussion about how the student’s movement demonstrated sunny weather after they perform their movement.
  • Repeat the process with other weather words:
    • Rain - Fast tempo, vibratory/percussive
    • Thunder/lightning - Moderate tempo, sustained movements interrupted by huge explosive jumps, angular shapes to show lightning
    • Tornado - Fast tempo, sustained energy utilizing the transverse plane (lots of turns at different levels, maybe stationary but low spins on bottom building up to high level turns-try turning in the air)
    • Snow - Sustained and/or vibratory energy, fluffy snow (graceful and slow) versus ice (angular and fast)
    • Wind - Sustained and moderate with occasional fast tempo to transport from one point to the next
    • Fog - Slow, sustained "blanketing the space" in long horizontal tableaux
  • Divide students into groups or partners. Each partner will receive a weather riddle.
    • Students will determine what type of weather is being described and create a three movement phrase to demonstrate that type of weather.
      • Students should use what they learned in the lesson about movement and dance to effectively communicate their type of weather through movement.

 

Closing Reflection

  • Students will perform their dances for their classmates. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
  • After each performance, the audience will determine what type of weather the performers are representing based on their movement phrase.

 

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, discussion of the types of weather and energy qualities that would be associated with that type of weather, ability to decipher their riddles, and ability to collaborate with their partner/group to create a movement phrase representing their type of weather.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

  • Students can identify the characteristics that make each type of weather unique.
  • Students can represent the characteristics of each type of weather through appropriate movement qualities.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Acceleration: Challenge students to create a logical weather sequence, such as sunny weather that turns cloudy and then rainy. Students should choreograph a dance that demonstrates this sequence using what they learned about dance.

Remediation: 

  • Reduce the number of movements students are required to include in their choreography from three to one.
  • Read riddles as a whole class; the whole class will respond to each riddle with a movement that they think matches the type of weather described.

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Whitney Jones. Updated by Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright:  June 2024 @ ArtsNOW

 

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