Video: Dance Workshop Emphasizes Exercise, Nutrition And Fun

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TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – Pre K students at one area school are learning about nutrition, farming and dance. WCBI’s Allie Martin dropped in on an interactive workshop and shows us how art is being used as a teaching tool.

Clara Frances Wilemon, and her classmates at Tupelo’s Early Childhood Education Center are playing the parts of vegetables, in this musical lesson.

Allison Griswold is the teaching artist and she is back on familiar turf. Griswold used to be a teacher at ECEC and now she is leading the students through a class that covers music, dance, exercise, farming and nutrition.

This lesson is based on a Native American tale called “The Three Sisters”.

“I’ve loosely based this dance lesson on that legend, so the kids can kind of start to hear the names of these fresh vegetables and understand that sometimes we plant them all together so they can grow big and strong,” Griswold said.

The dance workshop is part of the “Whole Schools Initiative,” which integrates the arts into all subjects.

Aynsley Farmer is the music specialist at ECEC and plays keyboards during the class. She believes it is especially effective because students are moving, a lot.

“We look at academic objectives and arts objectives and pair them together so that children can retain all of those academic objectives easier, because with movement, at this young of a age, the children learn very easily with
that,” Farmer said.

And whether they were squash, corn or green beans, students enjoyed the lively lesson.

Is this fun?
“Yes”
What’s fun about it?
“The dancing,” Wilemon said.

What part did you play?
“I was the corn.”
What did you do?
“I was going to sleep,” said ECEC student Laleike Gordon.

ECEC teachers are encouraged to use dance , movement and song to emphasize future lessons.