During week five, the students worked on a team and confidence building drill, which included obstacles that helped build coordination and enhance sensory motor skills. They also reviewed the basic self defense postures, which they learned in the first two weeks of classes. Mr. Venson and his father report that the students are exhibiting a high level of retention even for the challenging pace they have kept them on!
Hello Bennett Families, This week in movement, we learned a new dance concept: Tempo! We learned that tempo is a fancy word for speed, and practiced dancing both fast and slow. We did locomotor movement and non-locomotor movement, trying to push ourselves to the extremes of slow and fast tempos! Ask your child to show you which tempo they liked to move at the best! See you next Monday! Best, Jessie Madden This past Wednesday, the Martial Arts students took turns going through an obstacle course. An obstacle course is a popular game where teachers set up a course that requires several physical activities, such as walking, jumping, crawling, and maintaining balance, and the students cross all of these obstacles to reach the end. The obstacle course gives them an opportunity to test new skills and understand more about their physical abilities. The students enjoyed cheering their friends on as they went through the course! Hello Bennett Families, This week in movement we worked on a new dance concept: Non-Locomotor Movement. Non-Locomotor movement is when you move in place. To learn this concept, we explored different ways of dancing on our dots without traveling – melting, rising, crumbling, shaking, wiggling and more. Then we applied these ideas to an activity called Mirroring, in which two people face each other and one copies the other’s movement exactly, just like a mirror! This would be a fun activity to try with your child. Take turns being the leader and mirror, and see your child’s creative movement choices! See you all next Monday! Best, Jessie Madden The main focus for this class was to practice sitting down and standing up without using hands. It was quite the challenge! The children also continued practicing the basic foundations/stances and performed various agility movements. Hello Parents! Week three of our dance residency went great! We continued working on Shape and Locomotor Movement. Each student had the chance to create his or her own locomotor movement and shape solo in and out of the circle after our BrainDance. Then we added directions to our locomotor movement across the floor (forward, sideways, and backwards). Ask your child which direction they liked the best! Finally, we started learning a game called "Statue Museum," which works on combining both shape and locomotor movement into one activity. I'm looking forward to see everyone next Monday! Best, Jessie Madden Theme for Week 2: "We're really on a roll" Below is a list from Mr. Venson of what the children have been practicing in the class thus far:
Hello Parents! We had another great week in dance class! Your children got stronger at freezing in and creating different shapes as dancers. Then we began dancing through the whole space as part of a new dance concept we learned: Locomotor Movement. Locomotor Movement is movement that travels! We worked on several different types of traveling gross motor movements on all three Levels (Low, Middle, and High). Ask your child to show you their favorite one (Bear crawling? Flamingo walks? Rolling?)! Your children also had the opportunity to travel and create movement that was uniquely theirs, making their own creative choices. I can’t wait to continue seeing your children grow next week! Best, Jessie Madden Theme for Week 1: “Look Mom, I’m doing Kung Fu” In our first class, we covered a basic and fun introduction to martial arts techniques, while showing each student “I can do it”. Although none of our classes will teach the students to hit one another, we did show them some real martial arts techniques that they will later learn are quite effective in developing their coordination skills. You can liken Mondays drill, and many future drills, to the way “The Karate Kid” was learning techniques without knowing what skills he was actually developing. -John Venson Hello Parents! My name is Jessie Madden, and I am the Teaching Artist from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago working with your children. We had a great first week of movement! We learned the BrainDance, which will serve as our weekly warm-up. Ask your child to show you their favorite pattern (most of them like vestibular the best). We use fun rhymes and songs to learn the movement patterns, and your children did a great job of jumping right in and following along! We also learned how to make Shapes as dancers, as we created frozen positions with our bodies. Your children all learned how to freeze, exercising body control, and as they created unique shapes. We then moved through space working on gross motor skills, such as skipping and leaping, freezing in shapes when the music stopped. We had an awesome time dancing together, and I can't wait to be back next week! Best, Jessie Madden |