As you walk through the courtyard of the Sonoma (California) Charter School (SCS) sounds of stomping feet, clapping hands, and children’s voices singing “round and round” and “shake shake” pour from the performing arts space called the Playbox. Inside, 10 first-graders wearing silk tunics, holding brightly colored fabric pieces, wriggle on the floor like worms, jumping like kangaroos, then gently throw feathers from an imaginary bird in the air.
You’ve stepped into the world of Rainbowdance, part of a unique approach to improving student learning and building social-emotional resilience.
Rainbowdance – a weekly one-hour experience for children to use vocalization and movement to learn self-regulation, risk-taking, and relationship building – is just one component of SCS’s initiative to provide trauma-informed and resiliency-focused approaches to student learning.
“It’s really aimed at helping kids self-regulate,” said SCS third-grade teacher Judy Moses, 63. “When my kids go to Rainbowdance, they come back buoyant and say it’s the best thing that happened to them all day.”
[For more of this story, written by B.J. BISCHOFF, go to http://www.sonomanews.com/news...wellbeing?artslide=0
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