News: National Dance Week Expands Its Reach
March 30, 2011

National Dance Week is April 22 through May 1, and there’s no better time to plan an event or activity to share dance with your community and expand your enrollment. Need an idea? NDW’s website is chock full of them, from games for class to celebratory performances. And this year, NDW is actively encouraging participation from K–12 teachers with a downloadable curriculum.

 

Created especially for NDW by Anneliese Burns, director of ABC For Dance, curriculums will be available for free from the NDW website. They are divided by grade (kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th–8th and 9th–12th) and by subject (including PE, math, social studies and science). Second-graders, for example, can learn the power of punctuation by acting out sentences that end in a period or an exclamation point. And in math class, repeating a movement sequence teaches them about patterns. Older grades (5–8 and 9–12) also have swing, modern and ballet curriculums.

 

“We want dance to inspire more than just those in the dance community, and we would love for any teacher to use these curriculums even for one day to celebrate National Dance Week,” says NDW associate director Cathy Graziano. “We really want to expose as many people as possible to the enjoyment and benefits of dance.” Info: www.nationaldanceweek.org