Music

Music is necessary for children and their brain development. Many studies have proven that exposing children at a young age(the younger the better, even before birth) that there are many positive affects to the development of the brain. Preparing to become a teacher, I feel that incorporating music into my class is essential. I am hoping to teach k-2 and these are excellent years for music integration. All ages are good, but there are so many fun and interesting ideas to integrate music with the younger students. Just starting with simple tunes to help them memorize phone numbers, days of the week, colors, letters, numbers, months, season, etc. Children seem to respond very positively with the use of music and using simple fun songs and tunes to help them learn and remember all kinds of information.

Dance

Using a creative dance method in class as opposed to a structured dance method helps children themselves be creative. It also helps the student express themselves without feeling constrained to any particular style or movement. With the activity that is involved when people are dancing and moving about freely our minds begin to work more creatively and open up to new ideas. As a teacher I would like to include dance in my curriculum as well as integrate it into other studies. Dance would help my class to warm up at the beginning of the day or invigorate in the middle of a day. That would be the physical advantages of dance. Integrating dance into your studies also has many benefits. I would like to use dance to be able to teach about different cultures when teaching social studies. I would also like to use dance techniques that could be incorporated into math. Or use dance when I am teaching literature. This I would use to express emotions within a book. For example if there is anger to be felt, I would have the students express anger with a dance movement. I believe there are many opportunities within the classroom to use dance and children especially are very receptive to dance.