Overview 

What is occurring within this experience is that I’m encouraging students to participate in a pattern
movement exercise where they will listen to a song of my choice, and then move to the music with dance.
This will keep students engaged all throughout this experience so that they won’t get their attention spans all
over the place and be focused on what is happening.

Rationale 

This experience matters for elementary schoolers because it will help keep them engaged all throughout the
lesson and not feel bored at all. Since little kids have very short attention-spans you want to make sure that
they are always staying engaged and not feeling left out within the experience so this lesson plan will make
sure that they are participating in the class activities. If they don’t participate in any of the class activities
because of how “boring” it could be for them, then it can cause some distraction issues with the other
students.

I Can Statements (learning goals) 

● I can listen to music and follow along with dance moves either given by my instructor or created by
myself
○ VA SOL 3.6. The student will respond to music with movement by performing
non-choreographed and choreographed movements, including line and circle dances
● I can determine a sense of the beat from within the music
○ VA SOL 3.5 The student will demonstrate an understanding of meter by determining strong
and weak beats.

Materials 

● Access to the song for choreographed/non-choreographed movement exercise

● A piano/tuning fork for giving out pitches
● A guitar to interact with students for the “Hello Song”

Detailed Process 

5 mins 1. Start off the class with the “Hello Song” in D Major or C Major on the guitar
whatever key you’re feeling for that day

5 mins 2. Work on some solfege with hand signs and let students lead others in solfege as
well

5 mins 3. Practice some rhythmic patterns with clapping and again let students engage each
other

10 mins 4. Listen to the pattern movement song and go through the movements twice, once
on a say-do method, and the other a whisper-do method

5 mins 5. Reflect with the students how much fun this experience was for them
Assessments 

● Making sure students follow along with repeating actions the teacher commands, like singing back
the solfege, repeating the rhythmic patterns, and dancing the choreographed/non-choreographed
movements for the pattern movement exercise
● Self-reflecting how the experience was for each individual student
● Making sure every student participates within the experience .

Extensions: 

If there is extra time left over after the whole experience is done, then I would continue the pattern movement
dance and have students incorporate their own dance moves as opposed to the choreographed moves to
see what they would come up with that best interests them.

Adaptations 

Size This experience will take place within a big circle. Depending on the size of the class, I
might split the class into two groups and have two circles as opposed to one.

Color If someone needs a better visual representation of what is occurring throughout the
experience, I will beforehand prepare a color-modeled handout of the exercises I will
demonstrate to the class so the student can be more included within the experience.

Pacing If the warmup activities take a little too long than what was planned, then I would cut the
whisper-do method from the activity and just do the say-do method for the choreography.

Modality If something needs to be demonstrated again if a student doesn’t understand something,

then I would happily repeat the exercise so that the student can get a better understanding
of it.