Book WeekDance in SchoolsEducating DanceSchoolsBook Week at Halling Primary
World Book Day at Halling Primary was more like World Book Month! Five TRS Teachers visited to work with every child in the school in March and they all had a wonderful time. We’d like to thank the school for sharing many of the photos below. It was really lovely to see everyone enjoying themselves.
Read all about Halling Primary below and click on the link to read our other Book Week blogs.
Read more Book Week Blogs HERE.
Find out more about Educating Dance in schools by clicking HERE.
Written by Meg, TRS Teacher of The Year 2023
For Book Week at Halling Primary, I explored Molly McDrew and the Great Fire of London by Naomi Joselyn with the Year 1s.
We started with a simple warm up, deciding as a class a big movement for fire and one for water. Moving around the room in different ways and listening out for the tambourine they then performed the movement I called out.
Next we explored the idea of the Great Fire and how quickly it spread. We played a version of ‘sticky toffee’ with 3 flames and only 1 fireman to put out the flames and free the buildings (the students). Apart from being very fun this showed us how difficult it was for them to control the fire when it was spreading so quickly, we ended up with most of our buildings on fire and no signs of it stopping!
Just like Molly McDrew, we then hopped on our magic carpet to explore. I let the children take turns choosing different magical lands for the carpet to take us to for us to explore. Some of my favourites were Butterfly Land, Under the Sea Land and Antarctica!
For our dance we used fiery ribbons to create a tribute to the Great Fire. We started using a repeating phrase that a few students performed, then another group joined in and then the whole class to reflect the fire growing. After some fiery choreography we then moved in a circle, making shapes with our ribbons, and gathered in the centre. When we were all ready we exploded out and fizzled onto the floor and the fire was done.
Written by Georgina, Level Two TRS Teacher
The Year 3’s focus for Book Week at Halling Primary School was “The Promise” by Nicola Davies. The story had a message. The gloomy and unkind hearts of the people living in a city were transformed by the fulfilment of a promise made by a once uncaring and mean spirited girl. She planted seeds in her community and the once barren, dry land was turned into a green, flourishing habitat full of laughter and fellowship.
At the beginning of the lessons, the children were asked to think of a time that they had made a promise to someone, and whether they had obligated that promise. They then had to find colourful ribbons that had been hidden around the room and were given the duration of the “Countdown” theme music to complete this task.
After a series of stretches based around planting seeds, the key parts of the story were highlighted and read out by narrators in each of the classes. The children experienced what it would be like to hear the “gritty, yellow wind rattling around the city” by laying on their backs in a circle and moving parts of their body to Tosio Hosokawa’s “Autumn Winds”. They used yellow ribbons, scarves and shakers to replicate the sounds and movements of the wind.
Next, they used spins, hurried walks and movements in time to the music to reflect the brisk, unfeeling behaviour of the inhabitants. Some of the children really entered into character, pretending to be elderly people with walking sticks, miserable expressions on their faces, others became business people, incessantly looking at their watches as they pretended to knock into one another.
In pairs, the children made movements incorporating jumps, pushes and pulls to show the struggle between the elderly lady in the story and the protagonist, who was trying to steal the heavy bag which mysteriously was carrying acorns rather than the large sum of money that the girl was hoping to possess, while to old lady fought back with surprising strength.
Each child was given a chance to show their creative flair for Dance as they used the individual leaves, twirling, kicking and jumping to portray the growth of the saplings in the city, and the new found happiness at their discovery by the dwellers there.
The children joined together as a group to experience what the spread of green throughout the land might look like as trees started to grow and adorn the locality. They used the green stretchy webbing to move up and down togehter and stretch different parts of their body into the green strands, mimicking new branches growing.
Lastly, the ending of the story described how others were touched by the girl’s obedience to “The Promise” to plant all of the old lady’s seeds. They were so enamoured by their new green city, where they could happily sit under the trees drinking tea and chatting, that they starting planting their own seeds. A place formerly suffocated by “gritty, yellow wind” and “meanness” became a fertile, colourful land of hope and joy. Using the hand held ribbon props, the children invented their own sequence of movements to reflect the injection of happiness that had been released into their community. They then had to freeze as I came round to a number of the pairs and “unfroze “ them so they could show their peers the movements they had created.
Each child was given a sunflower seed at the end of the session and was challenged to think about how they could fulfil a promise to do something kind in their own community.
It was a fun and fruitful time, which facilitated food for thought.
Written by Josie, Level Two TRS Teacher
Year 2 students at Halling Primary explored the theme of change in their chosen book, ‘Tadpoles Promise’ by Jeanne Willis through creative movement. From seasons changing to the cycles of both characters, the caterpillar and the tadpole – we discovered more about how each time they met there was something different about them.
Participants helped to create a dance routine that showed how the tadpole grew into a frog, creating movements for each of the 5 stages and the results were amazing… they did a fabulous job!
Written by Erica, Level Two TRS Teacher
I visited Halling Primary twice in March and was especially pleased to be working with my favourite age group of all, EYFS! Our book was What The Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson. I was grinning from ear to ear when I left. What a delight both EYFS classes were!
When they arrived, the children were immediately captivated by the giant pond, the central setting for our book week story, What the Ladybird Heard. To warm up, we took inspiration from the ladybirds’ spots, and performed various movements corresponding to the same number of them. We moved on to look at the various animals within the story and replicated their sounds, as well as finding an action to go with each one. The children were very creative and particularly enjoyed being the red hen, complete with chicken wings and pecking head.
For our motif, we drew on the map and instructions within the book to create our journey around the farm yard. We then made flying curvy pathways before whispering to our friends. The children were all so engaged and clearly enjoyed every minute, as did I. I had an absolute blast this morning.
Written by Erica, Level Two TRS Teacher
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the year 5’s at Halling Primary School to lead sessions on their chosen book Macbeth by William Shakespeare. I was immediately impressed by their enthusiasm and knowledge of the whole book. Our main focus was the witches within the book, and the children all came up with some very creative ideas.
We set the scene during our warm-up by using various body parts to create thunder, lightning, and rain movements. Next, we moved on to becoming the witches, rising up from the ground. There were some excellent supernatural positions and transitions in their groups.
We finished by creating our own witches spells and explored the use of cannon and change of formations. Some groups even added their own chants in taking inspiration from Macbeth ,whispering ‘double double, toil and trouble’ as they danced.
I had such a great morning and enjoyed watching their performances.
Written by Jenny, Level Three TRS Teacher
I worked with Year 4 at Halling Primary and their book was ‘The Wolf’s Story’ by Toby Forward.
We explored the theme of two sides to every story and different perspectives. We started with a game of opposites and then explored the journey of the wolf towards Grandma’s house. The children learnt movement using symmetry and mirroring and explored how to use variation of elements to make the same movement look different from another’s perspective.
The children also thought outside the box and created some excellent movements for Big Teeth, Big Eyes and Big Ears using their whole bodies and different dance actions. I love it when the children really use their imaginations!
Written by Jenny, Level Three TRS Teacher
What a great way to start my Book Week, at Halling Primary, with the wonderful year 6s and their book ‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame. I was so excited to see them all as I taught them last year and they were fantastic. This year they were amazing! Such a creative group of children who created some excellent group work using tableauxs, canon, levels, contrast and a range of dynamics.
We explored how Mole started his adventures in the book and looked at the different features of his journey such as the river, the wild wood and meeting the other animals.
I had such a great time.