Blog post 5: Teaching SEL Through Dance


Today's blog post will be exploring the benefits of teaching emotion regulation and identification through dance. Mental health is an essential component of overall 

health, therefore it is essential that students are taught how to identify difficult emotions at an early age. The Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum focused on: 


  • the development of social-emotional learning skills across the curriculum
  • knowledge and skills related to mental health
  • more opportunities to understand the connections between physical and mental health
Moreover, Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) skills are important to students' mental health and healthy development, therefore, SEL is now also a distinct section of the updated curriculum. Important components of SEL skills include the following:

  • Identifying and managing emotions 
  • Deepening their sense of self
  • Thinking critically and creatively

Learning about mental health fits naturally in the elementary health and physical education curriculum. In each grade, students are taught about the relationship 
between their own thoughts, emotions and actions. Therefore, throughout this blog post, I will be providing strategies as to how educators can integrate dance into the HPE curriculum to teach students how to maintain positive mental health throughout their lives.


Lesson Plan: 
Grade 1: HPE

Expectations:
A1.1 apply skills that help them identify and manage emotions as they participate in learning experiences in health and physical education, in order to improve their ability to express their own feelings and understand and respond to the feelings of others


A1.3 apply skills that help them develop habits of mind that support positive motivation and perseverance as they participate in learning experiences in health and physical education, in order to promote a sense of optimism and hope


Grade 1: The Arts Curriculum 

 Expectations:  

A1.2 use dance as a language to express feelings and ideas suggested by songs, stories, a)

C1.3 perform a variety of locomotor movements, travelling in different directions and using different body parts

 MINDS-ON: 

In order to get the students thinking about different emotions, they will be shown the coloured emotional scale and asked to share what colour they are feeling. They will then be shown a short video to get them thinking about how to convey these feelings through dance. 




ACTION: 

Each group will be given an emotion (e.g., Happy, Upset, distressed, enraged) and the corresponding scenario that they are going to communicate through dance. 


Groups will be asked to focus on a dance strategy while creating their performance, groups may choose from one of the following options below:


Flocking: One leader begins an action, and then the rest of the group follows shortly afterwards.


Call and Response: One leader calls out an action and the rest of the group members respond with a different action.


Sequenced Freezes: A sequence of poses that you hold in a “freeze” position



CONSOLIDATION: 

A brief conversation will be had about the importance of sharing our emotions and how powerful it can be to share them through dance.


GUIDING THEORY:

The theory that we will use to guide our dance lesson is the Creative Theory This approach emphasizes the student’s role in the learning process. Within this model, students are encouraged to explore the material, ask questions, and make

connections to their personal experiences. Additionally, throughout the process students engage in body thinking, dimensional thinking and playing. Overall, students will be engaging in the creative process in order to express various emotions.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE:
This video shows students discussing emotions experienced by characters in a novel that they are reading. Students use dance to create a series of movements centred around the core themes of inclusion and exclusion. This video shows how educators can teach emotions through dance to older grades. 



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