Home School - Disney: Fit to Dance

We went to go and watch the fabulous Disney on Ice over the holidays and all thanks to the team over at iChildUK who have partnered with them with the #FitToDance campaign.

Fit to dance is a programme produced to allow children to share in the magical world that Disney on Ice by creating wonderful stories and then to process them into dance.

As a teacher and a home educator I am always on the lookout for resources, lesson plans and ideas to do with the boys. I look at some many sites and to be honest I am often disappointed at what I can find. They either have fantastic ideas for lessons but no plans or objectives and it is difficult to then aim any WALT or WILF or there are extremely detailed plans and objectives and the idea and topic is, let’s face it, rather rubbish.

So obviously I was interested to see what kind of work would be available and I was pleasantly surprised.

Disney has developed cross-curricular educational resources for children aged between 4-8 with a depth of objectives that could cover a few weeks’ worth of activities and subjects.

The resources and plans focus primarily on storytelling, character development, theatrical techniques such as set design and dance and movement.

The resource offers a total of eight lessons lasting around 40 minutes each. The first four support English literacy through a story builder process that results in the class developing a simple story. Personally, I can see that these could be spread out further looking at real in depth storyboard structure and character development. However, the plans do work well and the resources are easy to use.

Here the boys have created a character (Buzz Lightyear) and discussed his appearance, physical attributes and what they would like him to do. The sheets are clearly marked out for each progression and the teaching plans are easy to follow and then aid the continued focus on the objectives.

The next stage was to develop the character into a picture. This refocuses on the previous aspect of describing the character and then progresses that reinforced understanding to becoming more real.

The next part is then creating the setting, plot and storyboard from beginning, middle and end.

As mentioned above, I can see that this could be stretched out into more detail. You could create more than one character and allow a setting to unfold piece by piece to truly share the magic that is made.

As a teacher I really liked this aspect of the resources and I can see that I would use these on more than one occasion; in fact, the lessons were so well designed and effective that I can use this as a regular literacy resource over a 6 week period.

The second four lessons support the P.E. and dance. However, personally as a teacher I see P.E "dance" and the activities of dance stated in the plans as more drama and therefore 2 different subjects and subsequently I separated the activities to match.

So, instead, we did 2 P.E lessons where we danced to the music that was provided which can be streamed via their site. This allowed the physical movement and for us to explore the different aspects and feelings that the music and movement provided.

This is quite fun and we really had a great time dancing around and feeling energised. It was quite good to find time to reflect on the Disney on Ice and some of the movements that we saw there.

The dance and drama aspect of the lessons are structured so you work together as a group with the idea to develop one single story which everyone contributes to and then go on to create a whole class dance routine based on the narrative.

However older and more able children may be able to create their own unique story in pairs or small groups, and then work in the same groups to build their dance routine, so that you end up with a number of different performances; something that we actually took advantage of! 

The aim is to encourage the children to be active and energised, whilst learning that stories can be performed through dance as well as through speaking and acting.

The resources, once again, outlined different roles that we could try and with that different settings. The boys then explored using a variety of movements that reflected the physicality of the characters.

James, who is a big fan of drama and being part of a local drama school, thoroughly enjoyed trying to be big, heavy and slow for a dragon or light, nimble and quick for a fairy. There was one story of trying to sneak past a troll quietly and then once they were in that moment the Troll woke up! The boys especially loved this!

The boys then practiced showing how they are feeling by using a range of expressions and gestures, and combine that with movement patterns to give an overall sense of the characters.

For example, this was Buzz saving a trapped Woody and holding him when he first found him!

There is also the added bonus of resources to create some of our favourite characters!

The boys absolutely loved this just as much as I did. Theses resources and plans had created a well structured and thought out work set and with that progression through well placed curricular objectives and. The best part is that the resources are free to download online with supporting music and videos available to stream as well.

Although they’ve been developed with the Disney on Ice shows in mind, the resources can be used on their own as a part of your home school lessons in English, PE and the arts. Or, like many of my readers, these can be used to create a weekend of fun activities especially if the wintry weather really kicks in and you are at a loss with what to do!

(I was given this product for free to review in collaboration with Disney and iChilduk. My opinions are my own and I am under no obligations to give a positive review! Please see my full disclosure at the bottom of my blog)