The Centre of the Butterfly

The word Dancing at the centre of the dance butterfly underscores the active, participatory nature of dance education, and acts as a cue to the following ideas:

• Every student deserves to know the joy of dance and to learn in and through active developmentally appropriate dance experiences.
• Dancing students learn to use and to respect their bodies as instruments for creative expression, working through space, movement, and energy as avenues for expression.
• Dancing activates and nurtures students' developing physical, intellectual, affective, social, and artistic selves. In exercising their visual/spatial, kinesthetic, musical and other intelligences, students learn to think with their minds and with their bodies.
• Through dancing, students learn about the world around them and the world beyond, experiencing dances from diverse cultures and times.
• Dancing students are creators. In creating, choreographing, and performing their own dances, students explore their ideas, imaginations, and newly developed skills in personally meaningful ways.

As increasingly artistic, capable, passionate and confident dancers, students will begin a journey toward becoming creative, artistically literate adults, the kinds of citizens who will be able to participate in society with sensitivity, imagination, inspiration, and creativity.

The Wings Working Together

As one looks from the centre of the dance butterfly to the wings, a new set of relationships emerge. Each wing represents one of the essential learning areas into which the general and specific dance learning outcomes are organized. While the body of the butterfly evokes the active, holistic experience of the young dancer, the wings articulate a range of learning outcomes that collectively support a path to comprehensive, balanced and developmentally appropriate learning in dance.

The essential learning areas are:

• Dance Language and Performance Skills
• Creative Expression in Dance
• Understanding Dance in Context
• Valuing Dance Experience

Although each essential learning area presents a distinct set of learning outcomes, their achievement is not intended to be realized in isolation. Just as real wings work synchronously with each other, the essential learning areas are intended to function in an integrated way. Rich thematic dance experiences will invariably integrate learning outcomes from two, three or all four essential learning areas.

The Wings Individually:

The organization of outcomes into distinct, interrelated learning areas, or wings, is intended to give a clear outline of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes students will be expected to demonstrate at various grades. Each of the four essential learning areas contains the following componenets:

• Essential learning area: A statement summarizing the overall learning intent of the area or wing.
• General learning outcomes (GLOs): The GLOs are broad statements that identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students are expected to demonstrate with increasing competence and confidence from Kindergarten to Grade 8. 
• Specific learning outcomes (SLOs): The SLOs detail learning expectations for students at either a specific grade or a range of grades.

Connections to Key Concepts charts are provided for some SOLs. These connections offer background in the form of developmentally appropriate content related to the SLOs.