Storytelling Movement

Overview

This 60-minute lesson is the final in a three-part unit Expressing Stories Through Dance designed for Year 2 students in New Zealand. It celebrates students' creative achievements by presenting the group dances they have developed and reflecting on their expressive storytelling through movement.

This lesson aligns with the New Zealand Curriculum Refresh, focusing on The Arts learning area, particularly Dance (Levels 1–2), and emphasizes key competencies such as contributing, participating, and thinking critically about creative work.

Curriculum Links

The Arts – Dance (Levels 1–2)

• Concepts: Using movement to express ideas, feelings, and stories.
• Capabilities: Explore and communicate ideas through dance in collaborative contexts.
• Strands/achievement objectives:
• Express ideas, feelings, and stories creatively through dance and movement.
• Demonstrate awareness of audiences and performance settings.
• Reflect on their own and others' dance performances to improve future expression.

Key Competencies

• Relating to others: Collaborate and perform for peers, showing respect and responsiveness.
• Thinking: Reflect on what works well and how to improve.
• Using language, symbols, and texts: Describe and discuss dance stories clearly.
• Managing self: Demonstrate confidence in presenting work to an audience.

---

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Perform their group's dance storytelling confidently to a familiar audience.
• Describe the story or message expressed through their dance using simple sentences.
• Offer and receive constructive feedback with teacher support.
• Reflect on their own and peers’ performances, identifying what worked well in storytelling and how to improve.

---

Lesson Structure

1. Warm-Up and Introduction (10 minutes)

• Engage students in a gentle whole-class movement warm-up incorporating counting forwards/backwards in 1s, 2s, 5s, or 10s from a number between 1 and 100, blending numeracy with physical activity.
• Briefly revisit key ideas from previous lessons about telling stories through movement.
• Set expectations for respectful, attentive audience behaviour and supportive feedback.

2. Group Dance Performances (30 minutes)

• Each of the 5 groups (approx. 5 students per group) performs their prepared dance story for the class.
• Encourage performers to use facial expressions and body language to convey emotions clearly, fostering non-verbal communication skills.
• As each group finishes, the teacher guides a short Q&A: Students from the audience ask the performers what story they told and how they showed it through dance, practising listening and speaking skills with sentence stems like:
• “Your dance made me think of...”
• “I liked when you...”
• “Can you show me how you felt when...?”

3. Reflective Discussion and Feedback (15 minutes)

• Gather students in a circle for a guided reflection using simple prompts:
• What did you enjoy about performing or watching the dances?
• How did your dance story make you feel?
• What part of your dance told the story best?
• What would you like to try differently next time?
• Teacher models reflective language and helps scaffold responses with starter phrases and visuals when needed.
• Encourage peer-to-peer feedback with kindness and specific examples.

4. Conclusion and Cool-Down (5 minutes)

• Lead a calming cool-down movement activity integrating deep breaths and slow stretches.
• Praise everyone for their courage and creativity.
• Summarise the importance of storytelling through movement and encourage students to continue noticing stories in their world and expressing them creatively.

---

Teaching Considerations

• Use inclusive practices ensuring all students can participate comfortably, providing adaptations for students with physical or communication needs.
• Support narrative skills by linking dance reflection with simple oral storytelling techniques from The English Curriculum, reinforcing vocabulary and sequencing of events.
• Create a positive, supportive environment where mistakes are seen as part of learning.
• Use visual supports (such as story maps or illustrated props) used in previous lessons to aid understanding during reflection.

---

Assessment Opportunities

• Informal formative assessment through observation during performances focusing on students’ ability to express story elements and engage audience.
• Use teacher notes or a simple checklist that captures participation, clarity of story through movement, and engagement in reflection.
• Collect students’ verbal reflections for evidence of growing ability to articulate feelings and story elements in dance.

---

Suggested Resources

• Open space or hall for performances
• Music player (optional, for group dances with music)
• Visual cues or icons representing story elements (characters, setting, emotions)
• Reflection sentence starter cards or charts

---

Example Reflection Sentence Starters for Students

• “My dance was about…”
• “I felt … when I did this movement.”
• “The story in the dance was…”
• “Next time, I want to…”
• “I liked the part when…”

---

This lesson plan fosters creativity, communication, and collaborative skills while adhering closely to the New Zealand Curriculum Refresh’s Arts learning area and key competencies for Year 2 students. It integrates cross-curricular links with English oral language development through storytelling and reflection, which supports the development of verbal reasoning and narrative skills in a physically expressive context.