Creative Dance Lesson Plan on Diseases Grade: 2nd Length: 45 minutes Written by: Chelsea Alley Student Learning

Outcome: The students will demonstrate an understanding of how diseases are communicated, especially the differences between communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Students will also be able to distinguish the difference between positive and negative space and exhibit appropriate and creative interpersonal connections and relationships. Utah Core - Health Standard 1: Students will develop a sense of self. Objective 1: Describe and adopt behaviors for health and safety. b. Distinguish communicable from noncommunicable diseases (e.g., chicken pox, common cold, flu; asthma, cancer, diabetes). c. Relate behaviors that can help prevent disease (e.g., hand washing, good nutrition, fitness, universal precautions). Equipment Needed: Hand Drum; CD player; CD with creative dance music Behavioral Expectations/Warmup: (5 minutes) Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes Anne Green Gilberts Brain Dance Experience/Identify: (15 minutes) By raise of hands, how many of you have ever gotten sick? A cold? Or the flu? Its not fun, is it? How do we get sick? Think about germs. Germs are so tiny, we cant see them without the help of a microscope. Theyre so tiny, they can find ways to enter our bodies and when they do, they make our body fight back. And thats what makes us feel sick. These germs can travel around, from one place to another, and we can pass the sickness on to someone else. Thats why we call it catching a cold or the flu. These diseases are called infectious diseases, because they can infect someone else. We get them because those germs were floating around and somehow they got inside us and made us sick, and if were not careful, we can pass them on and get somebody else sick. When we are sick and its possible for us to pass on the germs, we call it being contagious. Today were going to learn more about how diseases can be caught and passed on. There is a very special germ in this room right now. If you catch it, you will have caught the dance bug! Spread out and find a place in the room. We will be able to see if someone has caught the dance bug by whether they are dancing with interesting and creative movement at a high level. Begin moving around the room at a low level. I have all the dance germs on my hands right now, so if I touch you on the head, you will catch the dance bug and must begin dancing in a high level! Play music, go around and infect the class until there are a few dancing. All right, several students have caught the dance bug and they are now contagious! If you are still crawling or rolling on a low

level and a dancing student touches you on the head, you will also catch their bug! Join them in the high level dance! Now, do you or have you known someone that got sick with something like cancer? Cancer is a special kind of disease that doesnt get passed around by germs. What does that mean about cancer? You cant catch it from someone who has it. There are other things like cancer that might make a person sick, or mean that they have to take medicine or have a doctors help, but that cant get passed to someone else by germs. These diseases are called non-infectious diseases. Can you think of some? (Asthma, Diabetes, a heart disease) This means that if someone asthma, they dont need to worry about passing it on, because they arent contagious. Its something only their body has. If you know someone with diabetes, you dont need to be afraid that you will also catch diabetes. You wont get sick by being around them or touching them. This is a little bit like when we use self-space and general space to dance. Right now, we have all been moving in general space. Lets stay with that right now, there are germs and infectious diseases moving around in the general space. Pick what level you want to move on and how you want to move. If you get tagged, you will catch the dance bug and move only with vibratory movement. You can also touch someone else when youre vibrating and they will then catch the dance bug, too. When I call out Non-Infectious, dance only in your self-space in whatever creative way you like. Stay in your self-space, you wont touch anyone else and nobody will touch you.

Explore/Investigate: (10 minutes) Last week, we began to explore connecting with someone else in a shape. Lets review shapes: twisted, curved, angular, straight. When were making a shape, we have two things to think about. We have the positive space of our body. Its called positive because something is there, we can touch it. Think back to what we do during the warmup. When were tapping our skin, we are using our positive space. Negative space is the space all around us. We cant touch anything there because its basically just air. Last week we talked about making a connected shape with a partner that doesnt connect positive space, it only uses the in-between negative space. Lets practice a few times. Now, lets try a few shapes that do connect our positive space. How is that different? Can you use other body parts to connect? What about elbow to foot? Or knee to back? Try some different positive space connections. Connecting these shapes using positive or negative space is also like the diseases we just talked about and explored. If I say non-infectious, make a shape that uses only negative space and does not physically touch your partner. If I say infectious, make a shape together that does connect positive space. When I turn on the music, dance around the space (remember to use interesting levels and energy qualities!). When I beat the drum, listen for my voice. I will call out either infectious or non-infectious and you must find a new partner to make a shape with. Think about whether it should be a positive space connection or a negative space connection. With your partner, dance using only connections that are positive space or negative space. Then begin moving around the room in general space when I beat the drum again.

Challenge the students to find interesting spatial relationships like over and under, around and through, and above and beneath. Create/Perform: (10 minutes) With a partner, create a dance that begins with either a positive or negative space connected shape and ends with a shape that is the opposite of the beginning shape. Make the middle of your dance longer than the beginning or ending shapes. You can dance together or away from each other during the middle, you can use levels, you can use directions, you can use fast or slow, you can use energy qualities . . . think of all the dance elements we have talked about before. Make the movement in the middle interesting and creative and put it in between two connected shapes. Divide class in half and allow them to watch their peers performances. Ask them to look for the use of dance concepts and interesting shapes. Connect/Analyze: (5 minutes) When I called out non-infectious and you and your partner had to make a shape and dance with only negative space connecting, were you still dancing together? Were you still connecting? What does that mean with real-life non-infectious diseases? What can we do to keep ourselves healthy so we dont catch an infectious disease? Besides germs, what other things can we pass on and share with others? What other places do we see spatial relationships like positive/negative space, over/under, etc. in our world?

 Infectious, Contagious o Dance bug LEVELS Non-infectious o Self and General Space o Vibratory Infection vs. selfspace dance SHAPE Positive & Negative Space Connections o Movement to a shape depending on type cue o W/ Partner in Spatial Relationships using P. or N. ABA Dance