Games and Creative Tasks
This game is a exciting way to introduce different scenarios and how best to apply them to movement. It is a great way to get all the students involved as they can try and guess what fellow students scenarios are. It is also a great task to build dynamics within a relationship, that will produce a raw outcome.
Game - Scenario
Game - Sausage Roll
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
Sausage Roll, is a great game for team-work. The aim is to move students from one side of the room to the other, whilst they are simply lying flat and the rest of the group are turning at the same time in order to make them travel. This requires trust, co-operation and the ability to work as a group.
This game is suitable for students 10+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
The Shopping List game is great for memory, transforming day to day movements into dance movement. It applies rhythm changes, dynamic and speed whilst the dancers need to remember and retain movement. The use of canon can be applied to further enhance this creative task.
Game - Shopping List
Game - Start, stop
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
The Start Stop Game is led by BalletBoy Simone. It is a fun way to warm up using the commands START, STOP, JUMP and DUCK. Try reversing these words so that they mean the opposite; this improves students’ concentration and focus.
Game - Lottery
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
The Lottery Game – Matt from the BalletBoyz leads an exciting warm up game that makes students feel engaged whilst introducing dance movement. This game is great for memory and focus. The game increases in complexity so either follow this or reduce the number of instructions depending on your group’s ability.
Game - Copy Cat
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
The Copy Cat Game is in three levels; easy, medium and hard. BalletBoy Matthew, leads a game that requires focus and creative energy. A fun way to get a class warmed up and ready to go.
Game - Painting the floor
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
Painting the Floor is a great floor-based warm up exercise that gets the whole body moving in contact with the floor. The visual idea of spreading paint across the floor allows for creativity, experimentation and fun. It engages the whole body and helps the students feel ready to move.
Game - Cat Burglar
This game is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
Cat Burglar is a great way of introducing students to floor-based travelling sequences. Brad provides visual points of reference, asking students to imagine that the floor is at different levels which they need to navigate their way across. It helps students become comfortable using the floor as a partner and is a perfect introduction to the KS3 Contact scheme of work.
Creative Task - Fill the space
This creative task is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
Fill the space is a great creative exercise to explore interaction between dancers. It explores creativity and working together as a team to come up with creative shapes and other dancers filling the space.
This creative task is suitable for students 7+. It can easily be adapted to suit both primary and secondary students.
Follow The Leader is a creative task led by Bradley from the BalletBoyz. The allocated leader guides the group through different movements and the group follows. Play with dynamics and levels, try and test your peers. This is great for following instructions, moving as a group, focus and quality and dynamic of movement.
Creative Task - Follow the leader
Creative Task - Mountain Trek
Mountain Trek forms part of lesson 5 in the KS2 scheme of work but can be used as its own task. It can serve as both a creative task or warm up game which can be used with primary students or adapted for older, more advanced students (an improvisation task for example) The task encourages creativity, problem solving and team-work and illustrates how shapes created with the body can help generate unique and interesting movement.
Wake Up the Body is a simple movement sequence designed to get the upper, middle and lower body ready to move. It could be used at the beginning of your PE or dance lesson as an introductory warm up to the session or at the beginning of a core lesson such as Maths or English to help focus excess energy and instil focus. This film exists in two ways; facing forward if your pupils prefer to mirror the dancers and facing away if they prefer to copy the dancers. There’s also a handy Top Tips film that we suggest you watch before doing this sequence as it goes through some simple technique and good practice.
Basic Sequence - Wake up the body 1
Basic Sequence - Wake up the body 2
This warm up is suitable for students 7+.
This is the second version of Wake Up the Body – you’ll notice that the dancers are facing away. This is to offer an alternative way of learning the sequence which some students might find easier. The movements and key teaching tips are exactly the same, it’s just a different angle!
Wake up the body (top tips)
These top tips are suitable for students 7+ and all the way through to GCSE to encourage good, safe technique.
This short film is a useful reminder of the some of the key reaching tips from Wake Up the Body. If your students can grasp these basic techniques and examples of good practice, it will help them in all of the lesson material as well. It focuses on:
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Protecting the neck
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Performing a correct side stretch
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Rolling up smoothly and carefully through the spine
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Keeping the shoulders down when reaching up
Basic Sequences - City Dance
City Dance forms part of lesson 2 in the KS2 scheme of work but can be used as its own task. It is a basic sequence which can be used with younger students or adapted for older, more advanced students. It warms up the body, encourages extension, incorporates floor work and different levels so that the whole body is ready to move.