I love the movement quality melt. I think it’s probably the most fun one to do and absolutely the most fun one to teach, mostly because you can talk about ice cream! This week I have been focusing on the word melt but I realized that it’s a really hard concept for littles to understand in their bodies. Here’s a little trick:
If you ask them to melt they will fall to the floor really fast, no matter how many times you practice doing it. While we practiced I had the idea to try just one body part instead of the whole body. This works, my friends!
To show the contrast we sat down and just used our arms. I asked them to raise their arms over their head and then move them to their lap fast. Then I asked them to raise their arms again and all together we melted our arms. It took so loooooooooooooong. We repeated it a few times.
Then we got up and tried it with our whole bodies! It worked! I could see they understood the “melting” quality after I showed the what the opposite of it was. I was so excited about this, and will use it for in every lesson for melt from here until the end of time. 😉
Do you teach the movement quality melt? Do you have any tricks to getting your littles to understand it in their bodies? I would love to hear!
p.s. speaking of melting.
Comments
Hi Maria, Yes, I teach MELT … but usually in the winter time. I have a story about Snow Friends … and at the end, the sun comes out and we all Melt. They generally get the soft, slow quality in this imagery!!! But, ice cream is delicious as well. :-). For the ice cream imagery, I wondering if talking about DRIPPING first would get the quality. talk about ice cream dripping off of arms, legs, bodies, then have them Melt…
Love your ideas!!!
Candace
I will check out that book, Candace. Thanks! I have a Hanukkah dance that I do in a month or so, so I wanted to introduce the concept. I also love the idea of talking about snow melting too. I guess we will be melting for a long time! 😉
Hi Maria!
Love the idea of melting one body part at a time.
We usually play a snowman game in January – i pair up the dancers and one gets to “make” a snowman out of his/her partner while the music is playing. When the music stops, I look at all the beautiful snow sculptures and then the snowmen slowly melt to the floor. There’s also this great poem I’ve used…
Once There Was A Snowman
Once there was a snowman who stood outside the door
He wished that he could come inside and run around the floor;
He wished that he could warm himself beside the fire so red,
He wished that he could climb up on that big white bed ;
So he called the North Wind, ‘Help me now, I pray,
For I’m completely frozen, standing out here all day.’
So the North wind came along and blew him in the door, and now there’s nothing leftof him but a puddle on the floor!
Anonymous