Who doesn’t love to dance? Even if you aren’t any good at dancing (like me). The kids at our school love to dance and so we get them into it, as soon as possible once they start….. “Put your right hand in, put your right hand out, put your right hand in and shake it all about,” “Open shut them, open shut them, give a little clap…”, “Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around…” And of course, it’s the best way to learn vocabulary through using actions.
This month I found out about the Dance for Sick Kids Fundraising Program run by Ronald MacDonald House here in Australia. Not sure if there is something similar in the US, but I expect there is. I discovered that you can raise money through schools by having your students dance for a certain amount of time per day for a week during May. I thought our students can do some dancing then and between now and then and I will give some money to the Program. This will give them the chance to feel they are a part of something that is helping other children.
As I said, our kids will dance whenever they are given the opportunity to all kinds of music and songs. One of our favourite times was a few years ago when we had two Israeli girls who were visiting India after finishing their compulsory military service, come and stay with us for a few days. We met them by accident on the street and invited them to visit the school. They had such a good time and taught the kids to count in Hebrew and a couple of Israeli dances. Such fun!
‘D’ is not a hard letter for students to sound, although they need to make sure it’s a hard sound and not a soft sound like ‘t’. For Khasi speaking students it’s a little tricky at the end of a word as all their words end in soft sounds, so we tend to get kindergarten kids to super stress ‘anD’, ‘saD’, beD’. It’s a bit trickier when it comes to writing, as ‘b’ and ‘d’ can be commonly confused by all students, not just ESL ones (which one has the circle then the stick, which one has the stick then the circle?)
Hoping everyone has the opportunity to enjoy some dancing sometime soon….!!
A Time To Write 
I am enjoying reading your posts. I like your structure of choosing a letter and building a piece around a word from that letter. Because I read you earlier, I love seeing your students in their plaid uniforms, sewn from sturdy cloth! I love how you just picked up the 2 guests and invited them into your school. I love how you join in the dance fundraiser to give your students a feeling of contributing to a larger world. So much to love! Thank you for these glimpses into a life and place quite different from mine.
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Thank you for your lovely comments. I do enjoy introducing people to a very different lifestyle and place, as I know most people haven’t visited India!
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So much to love about this post- I love how the letter D ties it all together. I love how you teach through song and dance. I love the interconnectivity with others through the fundraiser and class guests. What I love most are your pics of pure delight!!!
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Thank you, yes fortunately I dredged the photos up from a few years ago, as when you want them, all the dance photos go missing! It does so help the kids to learn better.
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What can go wrong when you are dancing? It sounds like the kids love some of the rhymes too. This post was a Delight.
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Thank you! Yes they love just about everything to do with rhythm and it helps so much with learning.
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What a great first line! It’s so true. I love the idea of teaching vocabulary through dancing. The photos of the kids dancing make the post even more of a pleasure. What lucky kids!
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Thank you! It is the best way to teach them to speak in English and I’m just sad that most schools in India don’t do it, as it makes such a difference to their level of understanding! I think mostly our kids know they’re pretty lucky!
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Ahhhh, the joy of dance. Such a delightful, playful way to bring people together, and, as you do so well here, reinforce learning. Thank you for this slice! Now if you need me, I’ll be over here tapping my toes…
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Glad you enjoyed it, it was very easy to write because our students do love to dance and do action songs and it helps to free them up a lot. I’ve almost got some of the teachers dancing these days!
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Our grandchildren love to dance. Our grandson is seven and granddaughter three. Any music with beats they dance. I like your posts and I am sharing them with my daughter. Thank you 👍
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Thank you! Yes most kids love to dance and the more they do it in front of others the better, so we try to encourage that and public speaking at school and it makes a difference.
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