I Hope You Dance...To Learn Shapes and Patterns

I developed this lesson plan after my time teaching dance at Shanti Bhavan, a boarding school for children living under the poverty line in southern India, with my co-instructor, Ally. The lesson is geared toward teaching shapes and patterns in elementary math. 

To get the children’s bodies warm for class, Ally introduced a warm-up routine that snaps out Rudulph Laban’s 27 points. Laban was a pioneer in modern dance, developing formulas for movement analysis and dance notation. Laban marked 27 points around the body that compose our kinespheric space, or the directions in which we can extend our extremities. Playing off the idea of this dance warm-up, I have adapted the warm-up to be a lesson in shapes, patterns and 2- and 3D forms.

I hope any teachers who see this will adapt if for their class, and if you do please post any results!

	Laban 27 Points Around the Body for Math - 2 Part Lesson;  1st Lesson
Academic Standard:	Grade 4 - Geometric Patterns
Academic Objective:	SWBAT identify patterns in their immediate environments SWBAT identify shapes in patterns SWBAT create different patterns
Activity Overview:	Lesson 1:  Since the beginning of the 20th century and thanks to Rudolph Laban, modern and contemporary dance use some mathematical and conceptual tools that allow us to generate movement by the exploration of some of its own basic components, such as the body and space.  Kinespheric space: it surrounds the body until the limits that our extremities can reach and travel with us across the scenic space. Dance composition tool: kinesphere Encouraging dancers to view themselves as 3-dimensional and explore movement as such, Laban defined that there are 27 main directions towards which we can move within the kinesphere: 1: Downward 2: Upward 3, 4, and 5: To the left: low level, middle level, high level. 6, 7, and 8: To the right: low level, middle level, high level. 9, 10, and 11: Backward: low level, middle level, high level. 12, 13, and 14: Forward: low level, middle level, high level. 15, 16, and 17: To the left diagonal backward: low level, middle level, high level. 18, 19, and 20: To the right diagonal backward: low level, middle level, high level. Using an extended arm and a “snap” of the hand, hit all 27 points defined by Laban. You can do this to the rhythm of a song. Have the students do it with you. It will likely take multiple times of repetition before the students feel comfortable with the sequence. Follow up:  What different 2D and 3D shapes are we creating from the pathway of our snaps? If we were to go in a different order could we create different shapes?
Ways to make activity more basic:	Only teach half of the 27 points so there is less sequencing for the students to remember.
Ways to make activity more advanced:	Put students in pairs. Have student A think of a sequence of snaps using some of the 27 points that creates a 3D shape. Once they have it in mind, instruct student A to show student B. Then ask student B to draw the 3D shape created by student A.