Curriculum Overview Template 

Art form: Creative Movement

Grade level(s): Pre-K 

Artist name: Chinchin Hsu

Number of residency classes: 15 

 

Guiding Question (“How does X affect Y?” For example, “How does focusing on the elements of pitch, dynamics, and tempo affect a student’s ability to connect music with emotion?”): 

How does focusing on the elements of directions, partnering, spatial awareness/patterns affect the relationship between two performers?

Inquiry Questions (Inquiry Questions help you explore your Guiding Question – they do not have to follow a formula. For example, “Will students feel left out if only one or two students are called to read their poems each week?”): 

1) How do students adapt to different areas of their school environment? Sense of comfort, danger, excitement…etc due to the environment? 

2) How do students center themselves and maintain groundedness in a space where they sense insecurity?

4) Partnering: Students’ comfort level of holding hands? How do they prefer their hands to be held? How do students translate verbal conversation into physical interaction? Is it literal? Abstract? 

3) How does each student choose to reflect and share their ideas/art-making with the class? Verbal, drawing, movements, singing, voice record? 

4) How does the understanding of their personal relationships with people from their community (family, racial affiliation, culture, traditions, school, playground, supermarket, restaurant…etc) influence their movement in quality? 

5) How does the understanding of their personal relationships with people from their community (family, racial affiliation, culture, traditions, school, playground, supermarket, restaurant…etc) influence their movement interaction with others? 

6) [teachers] Forming meaningful/relevant reflection questions and follow up questions through anti-racist lens according to each lesson plan

7) [partnership] How will classroom teachers and myself collaborate on a continuous-learning experience for the students? How will we exchange and incorporate each other’s curriculum into our own lesson plan? 

8) [partnership] How will classroom teachers and myself build a ritual together to establish and grow in our partnership throughout the residency?

9) [teachers] Refer to Workshop’s Anti-Racist Framework for BEFORE, DURING, AFTER class when planning each lesson.

Curriculum Structure (# of units/themes and # of classes in each unit/theme – for example “3 units, 5 classes each”): 

5 units: 

Unit #1 – 1 class 

Unit #2 – 3 classes 

Unit #3 – 4 classes 

Unit #4 – 3 classes 

Unit #5 – 4 classes 

 

Unit/Theme: Unit #1 Classroom Safety Agreement 

Number of classes: 1 

Lesson plan objectives (“Students will learn X by doing Y.”): 

1) Students will demonstrate the combination of text and action by verbally singing the chant and physically responding to the chant of classroom safety agreement

Reflection and revision problem solving exercises: 

1) (Expression) Students will brainstorm agreements that help create a safe space for everyone in the room to take creative movement class. 

2) (Reflection) Students will share examples of safety agreements they follow in other spaces (i.e. home, school, playground, library, religious practice, traditions, holidays…). Students will share WHY they follow safety agreements in other spaces, and HOW does respect everyone’s safety agreement is a way to take care of each other.

3) (Revision) Creating the Physical Actions and Chant of our classroom safety agreements. 

Key vocabulary words/phrases: 

1) Text / Actions examples

2) (Teacher) When I hear the clapping ( clap 3 times ) – (Students) Get ready to learn

3) (Teacher) When I need to sit down – (Students) Look for open space

4) (Teacher) When I feel crowded – (Students) I say EXCUSE ME 

5) (Teacher) When I have to share – (Students) I raise my hand 

3

Unit/Theme: Unit #2 Connecting Shapes, Movements and Stillness Number of classes: 3 classes 

Lesson plan objectives (“Students will learn X by doing Y.”): 

1) Students will connect four body shapes together by experiencing the physical balance in stillness, and understanding transitions between movements by connecting four movements in sequence.

2) Students will demonstrate a four eight-count phrase by connecting four shapes with four movements they have created from the past two lessons through text & action structure. 

3) Students will demonstrate a phrase of connecting five body shapes together by experiencing the physical balance in stillness and the immediate switch from one shape to another. 

Reflection and revision problem solving exercises: 

1) (Expression) Students will improvise their understanding of SHAPE & MOVEMENTS to music and teacher’s cues

2) (Reflection) Students will observe each other and memorize one shape and one movement from their friends 

3) (Revision) 

– Students will combine their own improvised shapes and add the learned shape from their peers to their phrase 

– Students will combine their own improvised movements and add the learned movement from their peers to their phrase 

– Students will add STILLNESS in their phrase making 

Key vocabulary words/phrases: 

1) Shape 

2) Movements 

3) Stillness 

 

4) shape-shape-shape-shape-movement-movement-movement-movement 

 

Unit/Theme: Unit #3 Dynamic Change 

Number of classes: 4 classes 

Lesson plan objectives (“Students will learn X by doing Y.”): 

1) Students will demonstrate spontaneous transitions by exploring shapes and movements in three different levels (high, medium, low) 

2) Students will demonstrate clear beginning, middle, and end of one eight-count chant by combining movement, shape, stillness and levels 

3) Students will demonstrate the understanding of switching momentum by using a clock as their reference to moving their body forward (6 o’clock), backward (12 o’clock), upward (12 o’clock), downward (6 o’clock), sideways (3 o’clock & 9 o’clock) 

4) Students will experience different physical proximity to their friends and reflect on how they take care of their bodies and others’ bodies while dancing in a room with many dancers. 

Reflection and revision problem solving exercises: 

1) (Expression) Students will physicalize oppositions such as BIG/SMALL, LOUD/QUIET, STILLNESS/ACTIVE, FAST/SLOW…etc. to experience dynamic change. Students will improvise how different levels feel in their bodies and switch their walking direction according to the body traffic in the room 

2) (Reflection) Students will observe their peers and visualize how the dynamic changes in the room with a group of students changing their levels and directions. 

3) (Revision) Adding compositional structure 

Shape-movement-shape movement- shape shape shape- stillness ● levels changes in each count 

• Direction changes in each count 

Key vocabulary words/phrases: 

1) Levels 

 

2) Shape-movement-shape movement- shape shape shape- stillness ● levels changes in each count 

• Direction changes in each count 

3) Directions 

4) Words to describe dynamic: different, opposite, fast/slow, high/low, moving/stillness, loud/quiet, day/night…etc

 

Unit/Theme: Unit #4 Locomotive Movements 

Number of classes: 3 classes 

Lesson plan objectives (“Students will learn X by doing Y.”): 

1) Students will demonstrate ways of using one eight count and two eight-counts to move from point A to point B and reverse from point B to point A by sensing and arranging their internal timer in order to arrive at the destination within the given time. (Point A and B will be determined by student’s physical abilities and choice)

2) Students will individually choose 5 elements of composition from what we have learned and create a two eight-counts composition traveling in space 

3) Students will individually decide the speed of their phrases that express their body feelings of the day. 

4) Students will demonstrate understanding of empathy by following/mirroring their friends’ movements and reflect on how their body responds to different ways of moving.

Reflection and revision problem solving exercises: 

1) (Expression) Students will improvise ways of moving their bodies from point A to point B. 

2) (Reflection) Students will follow a friend to move together from point A to point B then share how their bodies feel when following someone to travel in space. Ex: My body wanted to move fast, but I had to slow down so I could stay with Miko. 

3) (Revision) Students will use 3-5 elements of composition in dance to create a traveling phrase and teach to their partners ex…

• Student A creates and student B follows: High level+slow+big movements from A to B. 
• Student B creates and student A follows: Medium level+fast+tiny movements from B to A.

 

Key vocabulary words/phrases: 

1) Distance 

2) Travel 

3) Locomotive 

4) Empathy: Listen/observe/feel/follow our friends’ movements

5) Collaboration

6) Follow and Lead / Listen and Speak / Performer and Audience 

 

Unit/Theme: Unit #5 Relationships Between Us 

Number of classes: 4 classes 

Lesson plan objectives (“Students will learn X by doing Y.”): 

1) Students will demonstrate the understanding of personal space and shared space as soloists and as duets by using the pattern we created (shape-movement-shape movement- shape shape shape- stillness) in the classroom, playground, and school hallway and reflect on how their bodies feel dancing the same movement phrase in different environments. 

2) Students will share whether they feel safer alone or with their dance partner when dancing in the new environment; what are some other elements needed to create safe space for each individual and as a class collective? (i.e. picture of loved ones, someone wears the same color shirt, water, music, eyes-closed, hoodies, bearfeet, silence, grown-ups…)

3) Students will demonstrate different relationships with their dance partner (whether it is a person, a prop, a piece of music, an environment…) by understanding their comfort level with each other.

 

4) Students will brainstorm and share ways they think will support their understanding of unfamiliarity. (i.e. people, props, music, environment, ritual, language, skin color, outfits, smell, food, ideas…)

Reflection and revision problem solving exercises: 

1) (Expression) Pairing students to try the compositional exercise (shape-movement-shape movement- shape shape shape- stillness) as duets. What’s a comfortable/safe distance between two friends when moving together? 

2) (Reflection) Observe other duets on HOW CLOSE or FAR they are to each other? How do they communicate with each other (through words, movements, head nod, eye contact…)? 

3) (Revision) Bring the duets to different environments in the school such as hallway, playground, bathroom, teachers’ office to see how their movements and relationship shift (or not) in different spaces. 

Key vocabulary words/phrases: 

1) Space (comfortable, safe, dangerous)

2) Tempo 

 

3) Pattern 

4) Duet / Partnering /Relationship

5) Performer / Audience

6) Cues

7) Alone / Together