"Early cultivation of the imagination and critical thinking skills initiate a life long quest for learning, curiosity and social and civic engagement.
For at-risk youth, these skills are particularly beneficial."
Resources for Teaching Artists
Training Videos
Teaching Artists Go-To Guide PDF
Owned by CDE- indispensable guide to getting young people on stage and helping them create their own shows. For teachers, for parents, for budding actors, emerging crew, and incipient directors—this is the book that shows how to get a production up and running...and have fun in the process. Clear and accessible, Kids Take the Stage outlines a systematic approach to staging, complete with basic lessons in acting, relaxation and trust-building exercises, and improvisations.
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Owned by CDE- this book bring mindfulness, social and emotional learning (SEL), and the arts into lesson plans through storytelling and fun games, this book offers a complete course that helps kids identify and talk about their feelings, self-regulate and self-soothe when stressed, and learn from easy mindfulness practices.
The book has 21 different exercises for focus time. |
Lesson Planning Resources!
Each link contains videos and lesson plans all approved for the classroom
Click below to view
Warmups for Pre-K-2nd
Click below to view
Focus Time Activities
Books with lessons and discussions
Click on book cover to view
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Collection of stories for all ages
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Additional Activities and Lessons
click below to view
Bridging Activities & Discussion Books
click below to view
Power Points: (click below to view)
- Action Alphabet: PreK-3rd (A-Airplane, B-Bow, etc)
- Movement Alphabet: 3rd and up- Uses dance vocabulary
- Laban Basic Movement: 3rd and up
Literacy Bridging Activities
- Show a word card and all or few or one students moved
- Have students create a movement gesture to the word card, put them together to make a dance
- After students create a gesture movement, hold up card and see if they remember what it was
- Create a story to the word cards
- Draw a picture to the word card
Math Dancing: bridging activities or lessons to build from
- Symmetry/asymmetry
- Fractions
- Parallel/Diagonal
- Graphs
- Addition/Subtraction
- Shapes and Letters
Books with five to ten session unit plans
click book cover to view
Books for grades PreK-2
These books combine theater, dance, musicality and some visual art
These books combine theater, dance, musicality and some visual art
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Books with One to Five session unit plans
click book cover to view
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Raspberries for PreK-2 |
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Books With Scripts Adapted For A Play
2nd Grade and Up Some of these stories contain both movement and acting
click book cover to view
2nd Grade and Up Some of these stories contain both movement and acting
click book cover to view
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Books for 3rd and Up
click book cover to view
click book cover to view
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Papalotzin and the Monarchs: A Bilingual Border Tale”
-play and movement adaptation 
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Lesson Planning Units
Incorporates dance, theater, visual art
click below to view
Superheroes Power Point: 2nd Grade and up- you can take different elements according to grade level
Theater
click below to view
Dance History and Dancemaking- 3rd Grade and up
click below to view
10 Week Unit covering the following artists
- Merce Cunningham & Chance Operations
- Martha Graham & Narrative
- Twyla Tharp & Recurring Theme/ Broken Form
- Alvin Ailey & Suite (ABC)/ Narrative (Culture, Heritage)
- Bill “Bojangles” Robinson & Rhythm
5-10 week Unit Dance: Choreography and Improvising
- Grade level: 4th and up- good for introduction to dance with kids who never had dance
- Includes survey questions and post evaluations
- Take this and add in the styles of dance and music the students are interested in Show videos of the examples
Elements of Dance Chart: Body-Action-Space-Time-Energy
| elementsofdance_b-w.pdf |
Choreography Techniques and Vocabulary
| dance_composition_and_choreography_unit.pdf |
Cultural Dance Lesson Plans
click below to view
Music- Lessons, Music and Books
click below to view
Simple Songs to teach PreK-2nd
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Carnival of the Animals- Movement and Music
2nd Grade and up- this is a multilevel lesson plan
Counting song for PreK-2nd-
includes videos for learning
This will be an ongoing list of song to use in the classroom that incorporates math, dance, music and language
Listen and Move Playlist-for PreK-2nd
This list will be updated ongoing
Barefoot Books Sing-a-long
This includes some of the books we use plus other songs