Animal-Inspired Poses

For our tenth Mind Move Make class of Session 3, we started with relaxation time!  While laying on their yoga mats, I asked the students to imagine walking through the habitat of the animal guide that they chose during last class.  I asked them to imagine sounds they might hear in the habitat and what the temperature would feel like.  Then I explained that they could see their animal in the distance and to imagine it approaching.  To their surprise, the animal can talk!  I asked the students to think about what message their animal guide might have for them.

After discussing the relaxation time, we began to move!  I led the students through a few movements to warm up the body.  After that, I explained that everyone was going to invent a yoga pose that represented his or her animal guide.  The students had about ten minutes to practice the new movement before presenting it to everyone else in class.  Then the other classmates had to guess which animal was being interpreted through the movement.  As a class, we tried to imitate each invented pose that was inspired by an animal.  It was fun and humbling to try the poses the students invented.

Art-wise, many of the students began incorporating color into their drawings.  Most of the children are dividing their artwork into three sections: self-portrait, animal drawing, and a combination between themselves and their spirit animal.  Please click on Listening to the Animals to see the artwork we looked at for inspiration.  Here are some of the students' works-in-progress:

Knowledge from Native Americans

For this week's class, we started with a conversation around Native American Spirit Animals.  To my surprise, one boy in the class had read a book on the subject and had a tremendous amount of knowledge about Spirit Animals.  He shared a lot of what he knows with our group.  

During relaxation, I asked the students to imagine encountering the animal they chose as their Spirit Animal in the animal's habitat.  They were supposed to imagine their physical surroundings along with the type of interaction they had with the animal.   

After that, we took another look at the artwork I found for inspiration.  Below is one of the pieces I showed the students. 

Artwork by Charlotte Caron

After looking at the images, we talked about how each child would alter his or her image to reflect the chosen Spirit Animal.  Then each student got started on a self-portrait, along with a drawing of the animal.  Next week many students will be ready to combine their self-portrait image with the animal image.  

Here are a few examples of what the students have completed so far.  I'm interested to see how these drawings will transform over the next couple classes!

  

Listening to the Animals

Most Mind Move Make classes seem to be packed with activity each week, but this session was especially full!  To start, each child had the opportunity to present his or her artwork inspired by the book You Are Stardust.  The students explained the ideas contained within their pieces and how the artwork connected to nature and memory.  I recorded what each child had to say about his or her work.  Below I've included part of one child's discussion of her work.  If you'd like to see all of the students' creations from this unit, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page!

After each child had the opportunity to communicate thoughts and ideas about the artwork and give one another feedback, I introduced them to the next project.  We started a discussion about Native American animal guides, or spirit animals.  Many Native Americans believe that we can learn a lot from animals.  By paying attention to nature, reflecting on experiences we have with animals, and remembering dreams we have about animals, everyone has the potential to discover his or her spirit animal.  I learned about many of these ideas through finding the Manataka American Indian Council website.  The students had the chance to write in their sketchbooks about an animal that has been important to them in some way.  Here are a few pieces of artwork that we looked at for inspiration:

Artwork by Charlotte Caron

Artwork by Charlotte Caron

Artwork by Charlotte Caron

After looking at the artwork and reflecting in their sketchbooks, the students started creating self-portraits.  Later in another class, the students will combine their self-portrait with the animal image.  Here are some action shots of the students working:

Movement as Performance

There are three words in the title of this program: Mind Move Make.  The second word is, of course, MOVE, and movement is a big part of our class.  We tend to focus on yoga-influenced movement, but movement can take so many interesting forms.  To demonstrate this I started our class off by showing one of my favorite Flash Mob dances.  It takes place in Belgium in a train station.  Here is a link if you are interested!

I showed the video for several reasons, one being that I wanted the students to see humans coordinating their movements together in a very purposeful way, and that this could be achieved in a chaotic place like a train station.  I asked my students to work in groups of three to develop a movements piece that described a phrase from the book You Are Stardust.  The students drew one phrase from several that I printed out on folded pieces of paper.

Listening to the students develop their movement pieces was really interesting!  One group got started right away actually moving together while another group talked out their ideas before starting with movement.  I gave everyone about ten minutes to choreograph their mini-performances before presenting them to the class.  Each person had a list of the phrases that could have been selected and we had to guess which phrase had been chosen when the students were finished performing.  As soon as we were finished, one student looked up at me and asked, "Can we do that again?"

After the performances were complete, the students worked really hard to finish their You Are Stardust-inspired artworks.  I was very proud that everyone finished by the end of the class!  Here are the completed pieces.  Next week each child will have a chance to tell the story of his or her artwork.  I'm looking forward to hearing about these gorgeous pieces of art!