Week 3 - Math Through Drama/Dance

Although linear equations are part of math - our thinking doesn't have to be so! Math is an excellent integration point for the Arts, specifically Drama and Dance. Before I look at curriculum connections I want to outline a guiding theory we can look at to explain why this can be successful.

Progressive Education Theory

The main idea of the progressive education theory is recognizing the student as a social being. , A progressive educator believes in the importance of the emotional, artistic, and creative aspects of human development. There is an emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking, experiential learning, and collaboration.

When we integrate Math with Drama and Dance, we are taking a progressive approach to education that values having students strengthen their understanding of concepts through experience.

Drama

In drama, we looked at some activities that integrated Math and Drama. We started with warmup activities, such as "Atom" and "Embodied Scale". The ladder asks students to silently get into a line in an specific order, for example in order from oldest to youngest. Students are expected to communicate with their bodies instead of their mouths. 

We also did an activity called Living Venn Diagram. We created a large visual, using hula-hoops to represent circles on the floor. Students each chose a shape. The instructor would call out instructions and the students would have to decide how to sort the shapes and represent it in the Living Venn Diagram as you can see here. 

This specific activity is related to the grade 5 curriculums of math and drama:

Math: Geometry and Spatial Sense
- create and analyse designs by translating and/or reflecting a shape, or shapes, using a variety of tools.

Drama
- B1.3 plan and shape the direction of the drama or role play by collaborating with others to develop ideas, both in and out of role.

A great activity that also integrated both subject areas in called Directed Tableau. After studying geometry and spatial sense, groups of students are asked to create shapes (e.g., triangles, trapezoids, rhombuses, etc.). Each shape’s group has a director. The directors will then advise the students as to how make their shape congruent—through rotation, flipping it, or sliding it sideways. In this video below, you can see my group attempting to go through a rotation.

Dance

In Dance this week, we also used a math focus throughout our activities. The elements of dance we focused on were body and space. I talked about space in my previous post, but I will talk a bit about body here:

Body

When we think of body we think of shapes we can make and the body parts we can use to make these shapes. Shapes can be lines, curves, or even angles. The parts of the body are evident, but we can uses these to through locomotor or non-locomotor movements. 

To address math concepts through dance, we did an activity for a choreographic form called mirroring. In our activity, partners faced each other. One partner was be the leader and made slow movements, copying their partner. When we think of math, the geometry and symmetry expectations we talked about above will correlate well with this activity too. The students must be aware of the elements of space an body in this activity as well. 

After partnering up, our class worked in larger groups to create a symmetric dance phrase using different shapes and the elements of space and body.

Reflection / Modification Considerations

Getting students interested in math is tough and integrating drama and dance are an excellent way to engage students while facilitating the learning of both skills. Dance and Drama themselves can be used to modify the subject of math to make it more tactile and hands on. Our students all learn differently, regardless of the different challenges we each face independently. Math through these high movement and planning activities is an excellent way to try to make connections to real applications of mathematical concepts or just reinforce what knowledge they have already been studying. This is especially important for students who view math as a challenge due to specific exceptionalities such as ADHD or even dyslexia. These students are no longer forced to sit and read, but can explore the practical applications through body movements in dance!