“What a year! I felt like I grew to laser-in on key elements of movement. My overarching goals were to have students MOVE and find JOY in the movement. I had the usual early challenges – finding music, learning how to see students in little boxes, learning to translate the explore aspect of creative movement….

All changed and opened up when I brought a washing machine exploration to class. Prior to that I felt like I was not grounded in anything. The act of bringing in a very tangible real experience for students through dance brought so much kinesthetic connection to classes…and it kept on growing! We made pizzas with our bodies, pancakes, etc. There were so many ways we could explore and the dance teacher in me was giddy at the ways I could bring in dance vocab to the very Montessori-like party. I say “Montessori” only because we really took off bringing in real life home experiences, which makes sense because the students were at home. 

My biggest smile came when I was sharing with 2nd grade students about my experiences at the beach and how some seagulls had surrounded my gathering because we left pizza on the sand. And they all unanimously agreed that we needed to turn that into a dance. And dance we did! It was glorious!

It was a challenging year having to distill the dance experience into 30 minutes, but it made me more mindful and clear as a teacher.”

photo from one of Christine’s YouTube videos for students, “Breathing and Balance”

Christine Atkins
Elementary Creative Expressions Teacher
Oakland Unified School District
SI Alum 2016

Taught asynchronously through my YouTube Channel, and each class synchronously on a biweekly schedule. When my school switched to hybrid learning April 2021, I still taught synchronously in the mornings and came to site in the afternoons.