It’s COOOOLD outside.  This is how my trees were looking this past weekend.  YUCK!  But, fortunately for us, winter weather does have it’s upsides.  It makes for great dance classes!  This lesson is based on four winter weather patterns: freezing rain, snow, sleet, and rain.  Plus, you get to read this amazing book:

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner is just plain fun!  I read it to students aged 2-10 and they all love it.  Read on for the rest of the lesson plan.  (For the creative movement/preschool dance version of this lesson plan, click here).

Warm up: (2 minutes)

What do you know about winter weather?  It’s COLD!  I want to see you all shiver.  Shiver your right arm.  Can you shiver just your left foot?  Shiver your whole body.  Can you shiver very very fast?  low?  heavy?  light?  etc.

Experience/Identify: (10 minutes)

We are going to talk about four different kinds of winter weather: rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. Printable visuals here.

What is rain?  Rain is water that comes down from clouds that get so full of water they can’t hold any more.  Rain only happens when the temperature is higher than freezing — hotter than 32 degrees!  Let’s try moving rain.  How can you slosh and plop like rain?  Can you swim through the rain?  Can you slosh lightly?  Can you slosh heavily?  Quickly?  Slowly?

Freezing rain is rain that comes out of the clouds as water, but freezes when it hits the ground, or the trees like in this picture.  When I turn on the music, dance any way you’d like.  Jump, turn, kick, roll, etc.  When you hear the music get softer, start to slow down, and when the music stops, freeze.  Freezing rain is a slow freeze.

Sleet is a little bit trickier.  When it leaves the cloud, it starts as snow.  Then, in the air it melts into rain.  Do you remember how rain moves?  (sloshing, plopping, swimming).  But then, before it hits the ground, it freezes again, into little pellets of ice, like in the picture.  If sleet hits you, it hurts, because it is hard ice, not soft snow.  When I turn on the music, show me sharp movements, like sharp sleet.

Snow falls slower than rain.  It is light and soft.  In dance, we’d say it has sustained movement.  It keeps moving, but slowly and steadily.  Can you move in a sustained, steady way when the music starts?  Can you do a sustained kick?  Jump?  Roll?  When the music stops, show me a frozen balance.

Read aloud the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.

• Stop at first page (before title page). What is the little boy doing?  Rolling up a HUGE snowball to make a snowman.  I bet that snow ball is very heavy.  What can you roll?  Head, eyes, shoulders, feet, entire body, etc.  Show me some heavy rolling.
• “…for his turn in the snowman races”:I want to have a snowman race! Let’s play a game.  I will divide you into groups of five.  Each group will get a set of winter weather cards!  On the cards there are small pictures of sleet, snow, rain, and freezing rain.  The first person will run to the cards, pick one up and do the movement for that weather pattern.  When his teammates guess which weather pattern he is doing, he runs and sits down and the next student goes.  Keep going until all the students have gone.  Then return to the story.
• “skating tricks on ice”:  All of the snowmen are doing their own “trick” on the ice.  What is your favorite trick to do?  Can you jump and spin in the air?  Can you kick really high?  Can you do a cartwheel?  Think of your best trick.  Practice it 5 times while the music is on.  Then, show your trick to a partner.
• “world’s best snowball fight!”  During a blizzard, it looks to me like the clouds are having a snowball fight! When I say turn on the music and say “SNOW!”, everyone stand up and create a blizzard.  You  may choose any of the movements we have done: heavy rolling, light sloshing (rain), slow freeze (freezing rain), sharp movements (sleet), or sustained balancing (snow).
• Finish the story.

We just danced lots of winter weather patterns. Which one was your favorite?  Is that your favorite in real life too?

Don’t forget to grab the printable visuals and flashcards!