Teachers can really be sticklers about keeping students in their seats at all time. From the time the time they arrive to the time they leave, we are asking them to stay seated and be quite. As we all know this can be very hard for a middle school child to do. Students come to school every day with high energy, and that energy is often discourage in classrooms. For me, I love the energy and encourage it….but this energy needs to be channeled. Our solution? Dancing….why not?

In class I demonstrated to my students the mirror dance. This dance involves two students and some good music. Student number one will be asked to repeat all of the dance moves performed by student number two. This goes on for about a minute then we switch. Below are a couple of videos of this practice in action.

In addition to this exercise we also add stretching and jumping to our science lessons to get our blood flowing and get our brains working before we start learning. As for the students, they love it. It gives them an opportunity to get out of their seat and they are much more alert afterward.

Mr. McClung