Action Reaction

Our goal for this lesson was to lead up to our future project of making Rube Golberg machine's with the kids as some of the moving parts. To do this we wanted to get the kids moving and thinking about how they can use the movements they have been given and use them to pass movement along.

Introduction
To start out we reviewed our action words from the last lesson. Then we talked about their science words.

MOTION: occurs when an object or person moves from one place to another

ENERGY: is the ability to do work. You need energy to make an object move.

PUSH: is a force that moves an object. Often, pushing an object moves it away from you.

PULL: is a force that moves an object. Often, pulling an object moves it closer to you.

FORCE: is the push or pull on an object. Force makes the object move or change direction.

WORK: happens when a force is used to move an object, moves another object

SLIDE: is the movement of an object to smoothly glide or slip over a surface without rotating or flipping.

ROLL: is the movement of an object that turns over and over in a circular pattern.

STRAIGHT: is a type of direction or path an object can move.

CURCULAR: is a path or direction, in the shape of a circle, that an object can move

ZIG-ZAG: is a type of direction or path an object can move with a back and forth diagonal motion.

FRICTION: is a force caused when two objects rub against each other. Friction causes objects in motion to slow down.

While we did this we moved the words and applied them to the locomotor words they had learned last time and just previously reviewed.

Action Reaction Section
We then stood in a circle and talked about action and reaction. Then past the movement around the circle. Up until this point in the lesson things were going pretty smoothly. I wasn't sure how the last section would go or how would be the best way to do the action reaction section--with the full class or in groups or possibly a completely different way.

We talked about safety and respect; how to pass an action in a way that is not unkind and then started.

In the moment we decided to do it as a full class....it did not go as well as I had hoped... :\ Some of the girls were not as involved or not confident at this point to make their own decisions. A couple of the girls didn't know how to react when the movement was passed to them and as a result shut down. It was a bit disappointing.

I think it would have been better in smaller groups possibly. I was also thinking about some of the different dance terms that might have facilitated better passing of movement, such as energy words. Talk about passing sustained movement. We could also talk about swing and sway.