Arts integration helps students learn math through dance, along with other subjects. At Woodcrest Elementary School, dance works well with illustrating numerical concepts, illustrating addition and other operations.
Teacher Lynn Verdusco recently attended a workshop on using dance to illustrate math problems. She had her students work in groups of two, as they applied techniques that she had learned at the workshop at Midland Center for the Arts. The concept teachers were shown was using BEST (Body, Energy, Space, and Time) to show math ideas. Students planned how to illustrate “4 + 6 = ?” and figured out how they could best show the numbers, the signs, and the answer.
Students used body shape to illustrate numbers, gestures such as clapping, and showed quantity with their head, arms, and feet. Sometimes, one student would be a “1” and the other a “0” when they showed the sum.
Verdusco participated in the “Math on the Move” workshop at MCFTA, which was co-sponsored by the center and the Midland Public Schools. The workshop is part of the Partners in Education program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
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