This year’s session began a little differently in that the teachers and I had several meetings prior to starting our classes to discuss what they were seeing in the children’s interests, goals they had for the year and investigations we might start with. I also came in to observe the children where I watched a West Wing group building a castle where “there were no dragons” and Cindy showed me around the East Wing and shared interests in masks, fantasy characters and space. That all translated in my brain as spatial awareness, moving safely, characters, persona, weight, gravity, density, and lightness. It seemed like perfect fodder for our explorations. It also matches what I have learned over the years as the starting place for a pre-school movement class; increase knowledge of ourselves/body, understand ourselves/body in space and understand ourselves/body in relationship with each other.
So what happened our first day?
We sat on the floor to warm up our body, our tool for movement class. We
stayed low to the ground, which really works as the word inspires to have children stay “grounded” and focused. Then both wings began with a game where we introduce ourselves by first saying our name then creating a movement with a part of our body. I started – Ilaan (head/hair shaking). This inspired Olivia (squat jump), Sophia (arms flapping), Ben (Arching back while on our bellies) and more. We all learned each other’s movements. This game serves to have us pay attention to our friends, remember movement, try something new and feel more comfortable about the task.
Our West Wing friends had a hard time giving each other safe space to move so I decided to play my “Squirrel in the Forest” game. Each child chooses a place to stand and be a tree. Trees of course do not move location so this challenges children to stay in one place. The squirrel gets to run in the “forest” of trees. There is a lot of discussion about if the squirrel has enough space to get through or if the squirrel is moving through with enough room so as not to run into the trees. Simple but effective! To finish off our session we played an augmented “freeze” dance. This time when the music stopped we had to put various parts of our body on the floor – hand to floor, back to floor, head to floor etc. It was a great intro day for me to meet the children and them to know what it means for Ilaan to come and play with them. Those that might have felt a bit hesitant by the end had jumped in and I know next time will be ready to explore more deeply.
Our East wing played a different game that also served to give more awareness of each other and space. “Give a ball to a friend and spin” are the instructions and part of a poem I repeat until they get the game and are playing without prompts. Then I put the music on and the children move smoothly to hand each other a ball, then both giver and receiver spin around. There are less balls than people so some are moving, some are seeking out a friend and some are waiting/watching. I remind them to really look into the eyes of the person they are handing the ball to, to really see who is in the room, to really see the space around them. With this group we also talked about being silent while moving so that we could just concentrate with our bodies. Moving silently and not narrating with sound or words is a challenge for some friends but by the end of the class all were very focused and comfortable.
We will continue similar sessions for the next several weeks so that all NSW children will have a small movement experience with me. We are keeping tabs of emergent themes and needs of the children. The dialogue between Flora, Adrianna and I make this years start feel like we are creating an even more relevant creative movement program for NSW.
With sheer delight,
Ilaan Mazzini