Dance to Learn

I know all you Our Time parents are wondering when we are going to be done with the “Arkansas Traveler”.  I am pleased to tell you that we will be done in week 15 of the curriculum.  Now I can hear you saying “WAIT! Isn’t the 15^th week the LAST week of the semester?” Yes.  It’s true – we are going to do the “Arkansas Traveler” every week of the semester.

But there’s a good reason. I promise.  I wouldn’t make you do it if there wasn’t a really good reason.

Children need several things for learning to happen. First they must be in an emotionally safe place with caring adults to guide them.  They need movement, and if the movement can be varied that’s even better.  They need repetition and the activity needs to be fun, and joyful. Circle dancing meets all this criteria.

When a child is moving, their brain is actively creating neural pathways.  So for the 3 minutes and 8 seconds that we are doing the Arkansas Traveler, your child’s brain is in overdrive.  However, those new neural pathways are temporary; they will disappear without repetition.  So in order for those new neural pathways to last a lifetime we have to repeat the dance over and over again.  That’s why a child’s battle cry is “AGAIN, AGAIN!!”  They know that they need stimulating activities to be repeated.

The physical movements in the Arkansas Traveler are varied.  The circle to the left/circle to the right sections are large group gross motor activities.   Some of the children walk, some of the older children skip, and occasional hopping occurs.  Some of the children hold hands, which change how the children balance.  The change in direction is fast, forcing the children to reverse their body and their brain very quickly.

The toe tap is an isolated movement requiring the child to use specific muscles in a new way.  Typically the muscles used to tap the toe and swing the foot side to side are used in conjunction with the other muscles in the legs for walking.  So to tap and swing, we use just some of the muscles and in a different way.

In and out of the circle creates that safe emotional environment that is so necessary for learning.  And there is walking backwards in this section.  There are not many opportunities to walk backwards in our day-to-day lives, and it requires great balance and reversal of the typical muscle patterns used for walking.

And then we come to everybody’s favorite part- swing your partner all around.  Spinning is great for your brain- and for a toddler who really can’t spin that well on their own, having you do it for them is the best way to accomplish this task… and it’s lovely to be held and twirled around by someone who loves you…

But variety is the spice of life- we can’t do the same things all the time regardless of how loud the toddlers call “AGAIN AGAIN”.   We all know that we need variety.  That’s how we’ll build more pathways- right?   So how do we balance variety that with the need for repetition?

There are a couple of ways we accomplish this in an Our Time classroom.  There are several activities in each semester that we do over and over again. These activities remain the same each week while the other activities change around them.

And sometimes we change a movement pattern in a big dance for just a little while.  So we might swap out kicking in the Keel Row for jumping, or spinning round and round to swinging up and down in The Arkansas Traveler.   This variation in the movement allows up to continue building the neural pathways we’ve already established and start building some new ones while were at it.

And yes, you are right again. Now we need to repeat the variation.  So you can plan on swinging up and down for a little while. We’ll go back to spinning ‘round and ‘round because spinning really is like a full meal deal for the brain- but more on that later!

-posted by Miss Allison, who will have some very well-worn neural pathways after dancing The Arkansas Traveler over 135 times this semester!