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Teaching Rhythm and Dance In Physical Education

Dance is a polarizing subject in the world of physical education: some teachers love to teach it, other teachers can't even imagine themselves teaching it.

Regardless of your personal comfort level with the activity, I believe dance should be a part of every student's physical education experience.

Despite it not being a part of every family's traditions, dance is a part of our collective human experience. As a key component of many cultures, dance has been used throughout our history to share stories, celebrate as communities, and express ourselves as individuals.

That said, I get it: dancing in front of others can be scary. Our needs for self-preservation and social acceptance often get in the way of our desire to move and express ourselves as freely as possible. Because of this, dance gets labelled, stereotyped, and looked down upon.

However, refusing to embrace our desire to dance – a desire that is baked into our social DNA as humans – is a strategy based in fear. Even worse, it's a fear-based strategy that has the potential to rob us of some of the happiest moments in our lives:

🪩 Going our dancing with friends.

💒 Dancing at your wedding with your parents, family, and spouse.

👨‍👧‍👦 Dancing with your kids in your kitchen while cooking supper.

So, how can we – as physical educators – prevent this fear of dancing from taking root in our students hearts?

We teach them to love dancing, as early and often as possible.

In the rest of this post, I'd like to share some ideas and resources that can help you break down dance education, focus on its individual parts, and grow your confidence from there. These are tools that I've developed throughout my teaching career as well as some that I'm currently exploring with fellow #PhysEdU community members .

This post was built around the following learning targets:

🎯 I know the difference between beats and rhythms.

🎯 I understand the importance of support musicality when teaching dance.

🎯 I can use the Rhythm Challenge Cards to build a foundation for dance musicality.

Let's dive in!

Learning About Dance in Physical Education

This whole post started based on a conversation I had with a fellow #PhysEdU community member on how to teach dance in elementary PE.

After digging through my curriculum documents, I found resources that I had created for my grade two dance unit.

The unit was built on the following grade-level outcomes:

🏁 Performs a teacher and/or student-designed rhythmic activity with correct response to simple rhythms (S1.E5.2) 🏁 Identifies physical activities that provide self-expression (S5.E3.2)

Based on those outcomes, I designed the following student-friendly learning goals (a.k.a. unit-level learning targets):

⛳️ I can move my body to the rhythm of the music. ⛳️ I can express myself through dance.

Based on these learning goals, I created the following Learning Roadmap:

Helping students learn how to recognize and move to different beats and rhythms was definitely outside of my wheelhouse when I was teaching this unit... especially considering that I had a hard time differentiating/defining the two myself! 

One resource I used to help students make sense of these two concepts was Beat Sheets. 

A Beat Sheet is a sheet on which different movements/actions are presented in a 4x4 grid. The idea is that these sheets can help students

8️⃣ Break music down into 8-counts (i.e. two bars of music) 👀 Visualize how actions within a choreography are synchronized to the beat. 🕺 Perform actions/movements to the beat and rhythm of a song.

I had first learned about Beat Sheets on Twitter (although I cannot remember the exact source, I'm pretty sure it was through  Captain Pete's account ). Here's what my original Beat Sheets looked like:

Needless to say, these were a first attempt. After sharing these on #PhysEdU, I couldn't stop thinking about how Beat Sheets could be made better. By "better", I mean:

• Help students understand – through a visual tool – the difference between beat and rhythm.
• Help students make sense of dance musicality (more on that later).
• Help students learn the difference between different note values (whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth notes)

To create something like this, I was going to have to deepen my content knowledge (which is always a good thing). Here's what I've learned and what's come out of that learning so far.

Making Sense of Beats and Rhythms

The first step along this quest was to make sure that I actually knew what I was talking about in regard to beat and rhythm.

🥁  The beat is the unchanging pulse that music is built upon . It sets the pacing, timing, or tempo of any given musical piece that you are listening to.

🎼  The rhythm is the pattern in which musical notes flow.  A musical piece's rhythm can change throughout a song, speeding up and slowing down while the beat remains constant.

To help you better understand this (and how to teach it) here is an excellent example of a music lesson that breaks down the difference between beat and rhythm:

https://youtu.be/R1KxJyr5hDo

Side Note: This lesson is also a great example of how to use learning targets effectively.

If you'd like to try this activity out with your students, I recreated the tracking sheets that the teacher uses in the video.  You can access those here . Be sure to  check out this blog post as well : it seems to be the original source of the tracking sheets and links to additional activity ideas and resources for this kind of lesson.

Recognizing Note Values & Time Signatures

Ok, so this part might seem like a bit much, but it makes more sense if I tell you that I dove into this after learning more about dance musicality (I'm presenting my learning out of order here).

If  rhythm is the pattern in which musical notes flow , then I would have to have a basic level of knowledge in regard to musical notes. I should probably mention that I had no idea how to even begin reading sheet music until I started digging here: I don't play any instruments and I only have my once-a-week elementary school music class to my name. I now have what I think is a first-couple-weeks-of-the-school-year, kindergarten-level understanding of musical notes, and that's enough to give me the confidence I need to move forward.

I found that these two videos from RIAM Exams ( as well as this blog post ) broke it all down in plain terms that I could wrap my head around:

https://youtu.be/mlZVQbFW0JA

https://youtu.be/qfdHrkqkaTw

So, why would I – as a PE teacher – take the time to gain some basic knowledge about music theory? Because doing so is going to help me:

• Identify the beat of the song.
• Identify the rhythm of the music.
• Help my students do the same.

Again, deepening your content knowledge is always a worthwhile endeavor. It helps spark ideas, puts you in a better position to find different ways of presenting materials, and allows you to teach with much more confidence.

Oh, and it will improve my ability to help my students develop  dance musicality .

Building Dance Musicality

Musicality seems to be a challenging word to define. From what I've learned,  dance musicality refers to the way each individual dancer  understands ,  experiences , and  expresses  music .

In her blog post on the topic , Nichelle Suzanne shares that musicality has two main components:

• Musical Receptivity:  "One's ability to receive, comprehend, be sensitive to, and have a working knowledge of musical concepts like rhythm, tempo, phrasing, and even mood."
• Musical Creativity (Musical Artistry) : "The ability to connect with accompanying music, interpret it, or phrase and add movement dynamics that relate to music even in the absence of accompaniment, in a way that is unique or interesting."

With this definition and components in mind, you can see how  having a basic understanding of musical structures serves as a building block of dance musicality . This is why I spent so much time trying to learn as much as I could about musical theory.

Let's break musicality down a little further.

https://youtu.be/5zX7mOYjooM

🧠  Understanding Music: Using 8-Counts

An 8-count is an important tool that allows dancers to measure, map, and discuss music. 8-counts also help dancers plan their movements and design choreographies.

Again, understanding bars, time signatures, and note values helps us recognize musical structures and patterns which  puts us in a better position to play around with the music .

The Steezy video above is a good introduction to 8-counts (and can serve as a bridge from what we've learned so far about musical theory and where will be going in dance).

Here's another video in which viewers get to follow along as the Steezy crew plays around with 8-counts:

https://youtu.be/eHqiwNCSKEE

❤️  Experiencing Music: Developing One's Dance Vocabulary

In many ways, dance is a form of language: 

Instead of words, we have movements. 

Instead of phrases, we have sequences.

Just as in language, fluency also plays an important role in dance. Ultimately, competent dancers have something to say and are able to say it with as little friction as possible.

One of the building blocks of fluency is a broad vocabulary. To help students develop their dance vocabulary, consider the following progression:

• Free Play Dance : Allowing students to move their bodies however they like to various musical styles, structures, and rhythms.
• Imagination-Driven Dance : Providing prompts that guide dance movements while still providing room for creativity (e.g. "Can you dance like a mouse? Can you dance like an elephant?")
• Explorative Dance : Providing specific movements while allowing dancers to explore various ways of performing them (see  Melanie Levenberg 's  DANCEPL3Y session video below for a great example of how this can be approached).
• Teacher-Led Dance : Following a choreography that is provided by the teacher (or a  Just Dance  video on YouTube).
• Creative Dance : Designing your own choreography that includes movements and sequences that dancers have acquired and/or developed throughout their dance journey.

https://youtu.be/_mRwAhdSKh0

To get the most out of this progression, here are a few things to consider:

• Expose students to a broad variety of musical styles.
• Help students experience a broad variety of dance styles.
• Encourage students to be mindful of the various movements they observe/perform along the way.
• Encourage students to discuss music, compare music, and explore music as much as possible.

✨ Expressing Music: Pairing Movement, Energy, Style, and Texture.

Finally, dancing comes down to having something to say and saying it through movement.

We dance to express joy. We dance to express confidence. We dance to express vulnerability, power, attitude, and so much more. 

As we dance, the way we move our body expresses different emotions, ideas, or even stories.

Our ability to  dance with clarity  (i.e. clearly communicating what we want to say through dance) will be empowered or limited by our understanding of music, our personal dance vocabulary, and our understanding of other dance concepts such as textures.

https://youtu.be/T7o-PT0_Pvg

My Updated Beat Sheets

"Joey... what the heck. Wasn't this a post about Beat Sheets!?"

It is! I just wanted to make sure that we had a solid understanding of how these sheets fit into dance education and why I've designed them this way.

As I mentioned a thousand words ago, these updated Beat Sheets (which I'm now calling Rhythm Challenge Cards) were designed with the following goals in mind:

🥁 Help students differentiate between beat and rhythm. 🎶 Support students' understanding of music structure. 🕺 Support dance musicality.

That said, here's what I've come up with:

These Rhythm Challenge Cards do a little bit more than my original ones.

Each tile represents one beat (count) within two bars of music (8-count).

On each tile, students will have a clear visual of the movement to be performed within that beat, the note value for that beat, and the count number.

The example above is the simplest version of these sheets:  one movement per beat for eight counts, with each beat having a quarter note value. But what do we do for beats that have a slower note value (e.g. half note, dotted half notes, or whole notes)? That's what the markers between each tile are for. 

First off, notice how the notes on each tile's staff have changed to represent the updated note values. The time signature has remained the same (4/4: four beats per bar with each beat being set as a quarter note), but the number of notes per bar has changed.

Also, for movements that count for two beats (half note values), the  minim symbol (representing two counts) between the two beat tiles is highlighted and the second tile's movement space is left blank (to represent the movement has been carried over).

Ok, but what about faster note values, like eighth or sixteenth counts?

Again, the notation has been updated. As for the movements, additional movements have been added to the beat tile (similar to the bees in the video lesson I shared earlier).

For beat tiles with multiple actions, I also added a visual ampersand (the "&" symbol) to help students remember to count that beat as "1 AND" and not "1, 2" (so the entire bar reads "1 AND 2, 3 AND 4").

Dance and music go hand in hand.

If dance is the way that we physically express the way we feel music, than it makes sense for physical education teachers to help their students make sense of how music is structured as they explore dance.

Plus, developing a deeper understanding of music can help those students who are wary of dance look at the activity in a different light:

Instead of dance being this thing that "just comes naturally" to some, it becomes a series of challenges and opportunities. Music's structure can help boost creativity by providing both a space and set of constraints in which movement-based ideas get to live. Dance becomes a fun puzzle that we get to piece together, an activity we can lose ourselves in as we work to solve it.

Along the way, as we find joy in the challenge, fun, social connection, and creativity of it all... we might just end up dancing.

If you are interested in bringing the Rhythm Challenge Cards to your teaching, you can purchase the set of 20 cards in the shop. Doing so helps support ThePhysicalEducator.com, which means I get to keep putting together posts like this one.

Download The Rhythm Challenge Cards

As always, the resource is also available to all members of the Ongoing Leaner tier over at #PhysEdU .

Thanks for reading! Happy Teaching! 🕺

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Power-Up Rhythm and Timing in Physical Education Activities

Physical Education class is an optimal setting for students to develop and practice the precursor skills that precede learning. These skills include core strength, balance, weight shift, motor rhythm, motor timing, visual-spatial, and object-perceptual skills. Due to a variety of factors including less opportunity for physical activity throughout the day, more seated classroom time, and fewer foundational motor experiences (swinging, climbing trees, jumping rope, building forts, and kicking the can in the alley), children’s fundamental motor skills are on the decline ( Brian et al., 2019 ;  Hardy et al., 2013 ). 

A recent study reported that 77% of a sample of children ages 3–5 years from across the United States were at or below the 25%tile with approximately 30% of children demonstrating profound developmental delays (<5%tile) in their gross motor skills,  Brian et al., 2020 . Deficits such as these in foundational motor skills have consequences for cognition and achievement.

Motor Skill Activities Enhance Cognition & Learning

Advances in neuroscience have resulted in substantial progress in linking physical activity to cognitive performance, brain structure, and function ( Donnelly et al., 2016 ). Research shows that the motor skill development associated with consistent participation in physical education/activity can improve academic performance, cognition, visual-perceptual skills, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills ( CDC, 2010 ;  de Greeff et al., 2018 ;  Fernandes, et al., 2016 ;  Greco et al, 2023 ;  Shi & Feng, 2022 ).

Moreover, Physical Education promotes cognitive development by stimulating neural pathways associated with socialization and learning. Physical activities improve blood flow and oxygenation to the brain, which enhances cognitive functioning, attention, and memory.

Activities in physical education often teach children important classroom skills including following instructions, making decisions, problem-solving, teamwork, and self-regulation. Practicing these actions through physical activity helps children develop executive function skills such as attention control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. Recent evidence suggests that adding developmentally appropriate cognitive demands to patterned movement stimulates executive function and the precursor skills to reading and math ( Paschen et al., 2019 ;  Kolovelonis & Goudas, 2023 ). 

As knowledge of the impact of motor coordination on children’s cognition and academic achievement evolves, physical educators are increasingly integrating rhythmic coordinative movement into their daily classroom activities to prime the brain for learning.

The Importance of Rhythm & Timing in Development

Rhythm and timing play a crucial role in developing cognitive skills, motor coordination, and fine motor skills in children. This connection between rhythm timing and motor coordination has been studied across various fields, including kinesiology, neuroscience, auditory neuroscience, developmental psychology, and education.

Cognitive Skills: 

The link between rhythm timing and cognitive development is established by studies that have shown that children who engage in rhythmic activities tend to have better cognitive skills, including self-regulation, attention, memory, cognitive flexibility, and problem-solving abilities ( Miendlarzewska &Trost, 2013 ). The rhythmic patterns present in music, for example, can help improve a child’s ability to process and remember academic information (See  Bonacina et al., 2019 ;  Frischen et al., 2020 ).

Cross-Modal Integration: 

Rhythm and timing involve the integration of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic sensory inputs. This cross-modal integration enhances the brain’s ability to process the coordinate information from different sensory channels. As a result, children who engage in rhythm-based activities are better equipped to integrate sensory cues and appropriately respond to various stimuli (See  Bharathi et al., 2019 ).

Educational Impact: 

Rhythm and timing activities have been shown to be related to reading prosody, grammar, and early math (See  Lundetrae & Thomson, 2017 ). Children with better rhythm have been shown to learn with greater ease. Using rhythmic patterns to teach math concepts or language skills not only makes learning more engaging, but it also makes learning more effective.

Gross and Fine Motor Skills: 

Rhythm and timing activities often involve a combination of gross motor skills, larger movements involving multiple muscle groups, and fine motor skills with smaller, more precise hand movements. The ability to synchronize movements with rhythm is fundamental to children’s ability to pull to a stand, walk, run, skip, and gallop. As an example, dancing involves both whole-body coordination and intricate footwork at the same time, writing requires planning, visual tracking, core strength, and shoulder stability. Engaging and rhythm-based activities encourages the development of a wide range of motor skills, contributing to the foundational skills associated with learning.

Neurological Development: 

Research suggests that rhythm and timing activities can have a positive effect on the neurological development in children. Engaging in activities that require rhythmic coordination, such as clapping to a beat, dancing, and moving rhythmically, helps strengthen neural connections in the brain, particularly in the areas related to cognition, motor control, and coordination. These activities enhance the communication between different brain regions responsible for attention, planning, previewing, and task initiation.

3  Ways to Incorporate Rhythm and Timing Into Your Physical Education Class

#1: learn the value of 4/4 time.

Action: Teach your students how to think in 4/4 time.

Why: We live in a decimal society which is great for math, measurement, and science yet, it is not as beneficial to cognition and movement. In the western world, the foundation for human movement is actually in 4/4 time. We walk in 4/4 time, we dance in 4/4 time, and we even learn languages in 4/4 time.

How: Teach your students how to move in 4/4 time. Moving in 4/4 time, four beats to a measure, activates the natural musicality in the human body supporting skill development. 

Activity 1: Have your students stand up and count in time together, then move on the fourth beat.

“Can everybody count?”

“Let’s count together 1 2 3 4; 1 2 3 4; 1 2 3 4; 1 2 3 4.”

“Great, now, can everybody stomp? Let’s stomp alternating with our right foot and left foot on beat 4.”

“1 2 3 stomp right. 1 2 3 stomp left. 1 2 3 stomp right. 1 2 3 stomp left. 1 2 3 stomp right. 1 2 3 stomp left.1 2 3 stomp right. 1 2 3 stomp left.”

“Excellent, our bodies walk, talk and move in 4/4 time that is 4 beats per measure.”

Reflection: “Can you think for a moment what activities you do in 4/4 time, that is 4 beats to a measure?”

“Think about it… When you walk 1-2 1-2 you are walking in 4/4 time; When you brush your teeth, you are moving in 4/4 time. Even when you listen to me now, I speak, then you speak, we do that rhythmically in 4/4 time.”

“Great work! We are ready for our next activity.” (You have primed your students’ brains for learning now you can do you regularly planned physical activity lesson).

#2: Practice Static and Dynamic Balance

Action: Practice static and dynamic balance before you start an activity or during a break in the middle of the activity. 

Why: Taking the time to pause right before or during an activity provides an opportunity to practice response inhibition and self-regulation.

How: Teach your students how to balance in 4/4 time. Balancing in 4/4 time, four beats to a measure activates the natural musicality in the human body teaching the foundational skill of balance. 

Activity 1: Have your students stand in “ready position” with their feet aligned beneath their hips, their shoulders aligned above their hips, and their head held nice and tall with proper alignment and posture. Core is tightened, pulled in and up. Next you will teach them static and dynamic balance.

Why: Due to the demands in society, our children have less opportunity to practice and develop static and dynamic balance. Both skills are central to most of the physical activity lessons you will teach your students.

How: “Okay, let’s challenge both our thinking and our motor skills. I want us to count together out loud 1 2 3 4. Let’s do it again 1 2 3 4. Great.” 

“Now the next time we reach beat 4 we are going to all lift our right leg a few inches off the ground and hold that move for 4 beats. Ready count 1 2 3 lift (hold 2 3) and put your foot down on beat 4. Excellent.”

“Now, with our left foot. Count 1 2 3 lift (hold 2 3) down.”

“Easy or hard? You tell me?”

“Alright, now we are going to do the entire sequence twice. This will take some concentration. Are you all ready to focus?”

“1 2 3 Let’s FOCUS.”

“Count out loud 1 2 3 lift right foot (hold 2 3) down.

Count out loud 1 2 3 lift left foot (hold 2 3) down.”

If you wish to add dynamic balance have your students move forward in a lunge on beat four and then back to center. You can even teach your students to Walk Forward 2 3, Lunge (hold 2 3) Up, Walk Back 2 3, Lunge (hold 2 3) Up (return to ready position).

There are so many variations here, use your creativity!

“Wow! That took a lot of focus, good work, now our brains and bodies are primed for our next activity.”

#3: Apply Rhythm in Sport

Action: Teach a motor activity such as a soccer kick or bouncing a playground ball in 4/4 time.

Why: When children learn new motor skills it is easier if they do so in rhythmic time. You can teach a student how to bounce a ball, hit a ball with a racquet, or kick a ball all in rhythm. The cool thing is that once your students become used to moving rhythmically, then they can change things up. The rhythm is simply the scaffold the body relies on to learn the skill.

EXAMPLE: SOCCER

How: Soccer – If you are teaching a foundational soccer kick do so in time.

“Kids, we are going to learn how to kick a soccer ball. When we think about the steps they include: Stand on your non-dominant leg (balance), swing your dominant leg back (dynamic balance) and follow-through to kick the ball. 

This sounds like: 1. Stand (balance) 2. Extend leg back 3. Swing the leg through to kick the ball. See, it’s easy as 1 2 3, then rest.”

“Let’s try each step together.”

Count 1: Balance on your non-dominant leg.

Count 2: Extend your dominant leg back.

Count 3: Swing your dominant leg through to kick the ball.

Count 4: Rest

EXAMPLE: BALL BOUNCE

How: Ball Bounce – The same is true for bouncing a playground ball In Time.

Count 1: Hold the ball with two hands.

Count 2: Push the ball in a vertical path toward the ground.

Count 3: Catch the ball with both hands.

Count 4: Pause (rest).

Children need to experience the “felt-sense” of the pause when they are learning a new skill, so take that moment to teach them to “pause or rest” before they initiate the skill again.

A Few Quick Tips:

• When children are learning to move in time with rhythm it helps for them to count and say what they are doing OUT LOUD together as a team. This action leads to better social cohesion. It also activates biological entrainment which supports the students who may be having difficulty moving and speaking in synchronization.
• Feel free to SLOW Down. If moving (quickly) at 85-120 beats per minute is a challenge, encourage the students to perform the movements (slowly) at half-time 50-85 beats per minute until they get experienced with tempo, timing, and rhythm.
• Have fun with this process, it can be new to students. Encourage them to use their creativity, perhaps on beat four they choose a new movement together like a Superman position or a Clap/Clap, increasing the cognitive demands of the activities while feeling empowered and playful.
• Use your knowledge. You are experienced teachers. Change things up. Add rhythm to other activities you do. All you need is 2-3 minutes of rhythmic coordinative movement at a time to prime your students’ brains for learning.

Conclusion:

Physical education class is the perfect place to develop the foundational skills that precede learning. Research shows that children have lost competencies in vestibular abilities, proprioceptive awareness, motor rhythm, tempo, and timing. When you incorporate what the body biologically knows well, rhythm and timing, motor and cognitive skills develop with greater ease. Importantly, you, as a physical education teacher, contribute in a meaningful way to the skills that underlie your student’s academic achievement.

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Large group activities for teaching rhythmic activities and dance

This is an excerpt from rhythmic activities and dance - 2e by john bennett & pamela riemer..

by John Price Bennett, EdD and Pamela Coughenour Riemer, MA

Chapter 3 of Rhythmic Activities and Dance is intended to introduce rhythms and dance movements to students of all abilities in a no-fault, nonthreatening atmosphere. This chapter contains enough warm-up activities to take any program through years of success.

Many opportunities are provided to reinforce and improve the basic skills needed for rhythmic activities and dance. The activities will assist your dance program, while stimulating students to develop at their own pace. Dance skills can be enhanced when students do not recognize that they are working on dance skills. The activities in this chapter will motivate your students to work on dance skills without any risk of embarrassment.

As you begin using these activities, you will notice opportunities to integrate subjects like math, social studies, science, and language arts with your physical education classes. Take advantage of these connections and help your students see them as well.

Counting, adding, and subtracting occur in Eight, Four, Two; in the circuits; and in Countdown. Games like Happy Heart and Veins and Arteries provide teachers with an opening to examine some basics of the physiology of exercise with their students. Fitness in America could lead to a lesson in social studies. Parts of Speech and Partner Over and Under allow language arts to be integrated with our teaching in the physical education classroom. These activities are the obvious places to integrate material. The only limitations for integration are those we place on ourselves.

You will recognize familiar activities as well as a variety of new ones to expand your students' dance skills. All are designed to promote the development of dance skills and fitness. The familiar activities have been reshaped into dance-related fitness activities. This new look to old activities makes them appealing for all age groups. Give your students an opportunity to add new ways to integrate. The feeling of ownership makes students feel important.

From old to new

Although you will recognize many of these activities immediately, look closely because they may not be what you think they are. Each one has been modified with a focus on the elements of dance. Each one reinforces dance skills and fitness simultaneously. Whether the changes appear small or large, you will be able to focus on new directions through some old organizational patterns.

This chapter is arranged into four categories of activities: large-group, small-group, circuits, and games. Large-group activities may lead to high-quality movement, as do the small-group activities, depending on how they are used. The circuits provide opportunities to practice dance skills in nonthreatening environments, and the games move to a higher level application of a rhythmic dance activity.

Within these four categories are many activities that will be appropriate for your program. You can enliven your classes by applying basic dance skills and using new and challenging conditions. Use these activities and modify them to your needs. With slight changes, you could move one to a different category.

The activities are listed in their respective groups. Individual descriptions follow. Try them as openings and closings to your lessons. They may fit as the middle of your lessons, depending on your focus. When you are working with students who are just starting out, the focus will be on the locomotor basics of walking, running, leaping, jumping, and hopping in a rhythmic manner. When these have been mastered, you will move to combination moves like skipping, sliding, galloping, doing the polka, and so on. When you are teaching students with intermediate abilities, your focus will be first on the combination movements, then shift to the selected dance steps suggested in chapter 1. With advanced students, the focus shifts to mastery of the selected dance steps found in the first chapter. As you select activities from this chapter for your program, be aware of this progression.

Students experience large-group participation and develop a variety of dance skills.

Students are spread out in the room with everyone facing front.

After a designated dance movement is performed eight times, everyone makes a quarter-turn to the right and repeats the movement eight times (see figure 3.4). Repeat with a quarter-turn right (students are now facing the back of class), and have students do it again. When the students make one more quarter-turn to face the front, repeat all movements four times, and follow the preceding sequence. Then repeat the movements two times through the entire sequence: thus the name Eight, Four, Two.

Teaching Tips

• Use any number of movements—from one to several.
• Let students contribute suggestions for the activity.
• Always use music.
• Post moves for the day on the third wall that the group faces so that they can continue without stopping.

Suggested Moves

Begin with basic locomotor movements, then combinations, then the selected dance steps from the first chapter. This should be the progression to follow when organizing your program.

Basic Locomotor Movements

Combinations.

• Slide and lunge
• Skip and jump
• Gallop and leap
• Polka and turn

Selected Dance Steps

• Step touches
• Schottische steps
• Lindy steps
• Jazz circles
• Sit-ups or curl-ups
• Bleking steps

This is an excerpt from Rhythmic Activities and Dance .

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Fun Physical Education Lesson Plan: Making and Keeping Rhythms

• Marlene Gundlach
• Categories : Lesson plans & worksheets for grades 3 to 5
• Tags : Teaching grades pre k to 5

Here are the objectives covered by this lesson plan:

• To make rhythms in time with music.
• To name different types of rhythmic movement.
• To echo the rhythmic patterns of others.
• Something to write on that can be seen by the entire group such as a chalkboard or chart paper.
• Balls, hoops, mats, or other props
• Tape or CD player
• Music, choose something with varying tempos and rhythms

Discuss with students the different ways they can make rhythms. On the board or chart paper, have students list at least 10-12 different ways to make a rhythm. They can include simple things like snapping their fingers or dribbling a ball. Have students practice humming or clapping the rhythm of simple rhymes .

Making and Keeping Rhythms

Make sure each student can see the list of movements. Have the students get into pairs. One student should make a rhythm using the suggestions on the board or some original ideas of their own. The other student should then try and echo the rhythm of their partner. Give each student several tries at making an original rhythm. They may use props of any kind or the mats. You can then play the music and have the pairs work together to produce a series of movements that keep in time with the music. If time permits, allow them to share their rhythms with the class and challenge the class to echo them.

Easy Options

• Make the list shorter for fewer options.
• Allow students to make up a pattern of rhythms without the use of music.

Challenge Options

• Require that the students use a prop during their making a rhythm routine, like a ball, mat, hoop or other available objects.

Discuss with students which movements were the easiest to do along with the music. Also, see if they preferred to follow faster music or music that followed a slower rhythm. To assess these Physical Education lesson plans, watch the students perform the movements as they follow the rhythm.

Link to Math

Tempo of Music

• Provide students with copies of a piece of sheet music, at least one with 2/4 time and one with 4/4. Point out how the fractions relate to the music and its tempo. If song books are available, have students look for other examples.

Link to Science

Anatomy of Movement

• Ask students to choose two of the movements performed in these fun Physical Education lesson plans. Have them name the muscles used in those activities.