Materials for the lesson

A flashlight,
a cd player / tape recorder,
a famous waltz that could be “Blue Danube”, or “Traviata” by Verdi, or whatever the teacher chooses,
teacher’s bell
Tags with the names of planets (Mars, Venus, earth etc.). The tags are made by the children at the beginning of the course and hang them up with a cord around their necks or with a paper clip pinned to their clothes.

The teacher’s bell

Layout of the classroom

The desks-chairs must be by the walls of the class-room so as to have free space in the middle to move. The teacher makes concentric circles with a chalk or masking tape on the floor. The number of circles must be half the number of children in the class because the children will be divided in pairs. It will be good if the concentric circles are as many as there are in our solar system stars. It will be better, more exciting and funny if we have a relative blackout by the school’s curtains so as the light of the flashlight to have more extraordinary results

Phase 1

With the guidance of their teacher, children learn to waltz. We do not care how well they will waltz. Just good enough so as the can twirl and click on the circle that is set from the beginning on the floor. The teacher stands at the center of concentric circles and illuminates the flashlight. The music plays and scatters the melody of the whole class. Off course the flashlight falls on the pair of children when they pass in front of him. So a pair is illuminated on one side and not the other. The teacher helps with the proper moves and maneuvers that flashlight=sun falls accordingly and makes the lesson more understandable.

Phase 2

The bell rings and children are immobilized. The teacher gives the tags with the names of the planets in each pair. The music resumes and children dance. The teacher with the flashlight illuminates the planets as the sun in our solar system. At his own discretion, action can stop to correct or clarify the details (How planetary paths do not overlap and do not strike one another, slower one planet in relationship with someone else who turns faster etc.)

Phase 3

Couples can change paths for greater variety and they can switch tags too.

Phase 4

Children sit at their desks and the teacher presents the course by explaining and combining the creative course with the theoretical-cognitive way, with the known traditional form. Views and maps explain and show pictures that indicate the position of the planets on their orbits, their speeds etc.
The gain is that children, in addition to knowledge about the planets, danced, listened to music, disciplined on the tracks painted by the teacher on the floor, socialized through movement, danced and played