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Squares and Rectangles

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Students sit on the mat with some space around them.

  1. Introduction: What is a square? Show the class the square shape (see below) and encourage students to describe it. How many sides does it have? How many corners? If appropriate, introduce the terms 'angle', 'right angle' and 'parallel'. Make right angles with arms and legs. Make parallel lines with arms and with legs. What are the differences between the circle and the square? Look around the room and see if you can find some squares - window frames, books, the mat, the Whiteboard (possibly). When a child identifies a rectangle, introduce the rectangle shape (from the resource) and discuss the differences between a square and a rectangle.
  2. Take the class outside onto the school courts. (Most courts have square or rectangular markings). Everyone walks/skips/hops/tiptoes along the lines, making large square or rectangular floor pathways. Change directions - clockwise and anticlockwise.
  3. Remain on the playground or inside where there is enough space. Use the large elastic and have everyone help to make a square shape. Mark the corners with cones.
    • Stretch one side backwards to make a rectangle.
    • Make a very narrow rectangle
    • Make a rectangle that is higher on one side than the other
    • Shrink the rectangle back into a square. Walk around in a square making sure they make sharp turns at each corner. Walk backwards along the square pathway. Repeat with other forms of locomotor movement such as walking with giant steps, jogging with high knee lifts, walking very low to the ground.
    • CHALLENGE: The teacher removes the cones and the students try to walk along the square pathway.
  4. An air pathway sequence. Students work individually.
    • Draw a square pathway in the air with your: left hand, right thumb, right ear, chin, right heel, left knee
    • Decide which 2 air pathways you have just made are the most interesting and draw them one after the other with no stops in between.
    • Repeat as necessary for recall. (Some students may be able to make a sequence with 3 or 4 different air pathways).

Activities 5 - 8 (below) can be carried out in one class group using one large square shape rather than smaller groups.

  1. The teacher uses cones to mark out several squares around the dance area. TRAINS: Allocate 3-4 students to each square and assign one student from each group to be the leader. As the teacher beats a drum or shakes a tambourine, the others have to follow him/her as they travel around their 4 cones. Each time the drum/tambourine stops, the next person in line becomes the leader and the previous one goes to the back of the line. As students gain confidence, encourage them to use different forms of locomotor movement when a new leader is made.
  2. Continue to travel around the floor pathways as above, but without a leader. Students work individually and change their locomotor movement (travel in a different way) each time they arrive at a cone.
  3. Revise their Air Pathway Sequences that they made earlier (in activity 4).
  4. A 'Square' Dance
    • Assign one student to a side of their marked out squares. This is each individual student's starting point.
    • Task 1 = perform their Air Pathway Sequence
    • Task 2 = travel around the square using 4 different forms of locomotor movement (changing the movement at each cone) to arrive back at their starting point
    • Task 3 = Repeat their Air Pathway Sequence
    • Task 4 = Finish in a still square shape
    The students could perform their Square dances as individuals (as rehearsed) or with everyone in the group performing at the same time.

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