Third graders are learning dances about clapping for their end-of-year performance now. Their first dance is d’hammerschmiedsgselln (that’s duh-ham-mair-shmeets-guh-seln, I’m told), which has a great clapping pattern for a quartet. I dragged them through learning it last week, and now that they finally have it, they love it. The second is the Virginia Reel, which doesn’t have official clapping, but you’ve just gotta clap when the head couple sashays down the aisle! It’s not just friendly, it’s necessary — in order to warn wayward elbow-swingers to get out of the way.
We learned it yesterday, but today after we warmed up with yoga, I wanted everyone to have a chance to be the head couple. So they reeled for 20 minutes, and when everyone had had a turn, our time was up! There wasn’t a single complaint — just tired, happy kids!
Tomorrow we start Part 3 — their own choreography using clapping & body percussion. And for performance, of course, we’ll only do the reel a couple times through.
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