ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how dance provides teachers with opportunities to attend to the development of the whole child. It describes how one teacher integrates dance and literacy in an effort to provide students with opportunities to connect themselves to their worlds. As students learn and develop, it essential that they are provided with opportunities to engage in connecting. As teachers provide spaces for students to make meaning, then students have opportunities to ask questions, seek information, and construct ideas. Indeed, this type of learning focuses on children making meaning of their worlds while connecting content to their personal experiences. Elementary teachers are keenly aware that stillness and silence are not part of their classrooms. A glance into any elementary classroom reveals constant movement and motion. From an artist's perspective, the classroom is a stage with children in a constant state of creating and performing - for themselves, each other, and the teacher.
