Every year, students at Churchville Elementary School look forward to learning holiday dance routines from visiting “big kids” from the high school. In this strange year of social distancing, Churchville-Chili High School dance instructor Janelle Hernandez and her Dance II and Dance Excel classes had to come up with new ways to connect with the little ones.
They created several instructional dance videos – one for third-and-fourth-graders (https://www.wevideo.com/view/1974508201), and one targeted to kindergarteners through second grade (https://www.wevideo.com/view/1974453800). Each features easy-to-follow dance steps, cheerful holiday music and, best of all, the dancers’ memories of their own time in elementary school. Physical education teachers at CES, Chestnut Ridge, and Fairbanks Road Elementary Schools were able to share the videos and enjoy dancing with their students.
Hernandez even set up a live session on December 21 for her dancers to interact in real-time with CES first-graders. The Zoom session gave the younger students a chance to meet a few of their high school mentors and ask questions. Many are looking forward to being able to choose dance for PE credit or as an elective when they get to high school.
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