I tried to teach a dance today in kindergarten that I learned at a convention and is also in my favorite textbook GAMEPLAN. It's in the kindergarten book so I tried it.
We (I) talked about counter clockwise and finally got them to show me the direction the hands of a clock move and then show me how they would move if they went counterclockwise. Now they were ready to walk counterclockwise and first time around the circle, things went well. I said we were going to walk for 16 beats. One kid puts his head in his hands and says plaintively, "Oh nooo. We'll be here all day and won't be able to do anything else." "Don't worry," I said, "It won't take that long." Apparently my kids' sense of psychological time needs some work.
Sixteen beats later they all turned at the same time and went the opposite direction. I was encouraged. We dd it again. No problem.. Further encouraged, .I went to demonstrate the right hand star. I was doubtful, but it said in my textbook that this was a kindergarten dance and I have never been steered wrong by this book.....yet.
Ok, so we practiced raising our right and then left arms several times and then practiced putting right and then left arms into the circle. I demonstrated the right and left hand star with 4 of the brighter bulbs in this pack. They did fine. Then I demonstrated how to walk to someone in the circle and swing them. Chaotic event number one occurs. All of the ones in the outside circle started begging, "Pick ME. Pick ME." I put an end to that by saying, "1. Pick someone nearest to you. 2. Pick someone who is standing still." That left a choice of about 1 kid because the 4 little stars had somehow drifted over to the same side where they seized on the one child who was standing still. (He was standing still because he was very involved in staring at invisible air molecules and always manages to be blissfully detached from anything going on the real world).
Finally it came time to put it all together. They promptly forgot which way to go first, and then forgot when to turn, and then forgot to walk and not stampede, and then forgot right from left, and then the four new stars were not walking around in a circle,but instead had linked arms and were trying to go off in different directions like conjoined quadruplets trying unsuccessfully to separate themselves, until finally I stopped, had them sit down and tried to refocus.
They stood up and I reminded them to LOOK at the BACK OF THE HEAD in FRONT of you. If you are looking at a pair of eyeballs, SOMEONE is facing the wrong way. Several arguments broke out about whose eyeballs were looking in the wrong direction.
Finally all the eyeballs were looking in the same direction. Wait, that's not entirely true. They were all facing the right way, but I saw several heads tilted up, down and to the side, probably looking at the same invisible air molecules as quiet boy had been engaged with. Two girls were busy chatting about their shoes. One girl was braiding another girl's hair. Two boys were poking each other. Another boy had discovered that there was some magic lint on the carpet and wanted to play with it. Ah, the joy of teaching 5 and 6 years old, last class of the day in the late afternoon. It was past nap time (mine and theirs).
I looked at the clock. 2:01. Four more minutes of class. Maybe we'll try again next week.
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