Kris Olson: The Moving Classroom

Name: Kris Olson: The Moving Classroom
Start: 2025-04-26T08:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-04-26T12:00:00-08:00
Location: Oak Knoll Elementary School

Schedule

Sat Apr 26 2025 at 08:00 am to 12:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

Oak Knoll Elementary School | Menlo Park, CA

Location: Oak Knoll Elementary School
Website link: https://ncaosa.org/events/
In this workshop, we’ll discover ways to strengthen musical skills and create avenues for creativity and growth by getting children moving. For our youngest students we’ll explore age-appropriate activities that utilize adapted folk dance, fanciful finger plays, and the world of pretend. For our older students, we’ll explore how limiting choices and developing clear structures can benefit the creative process. Most importantly we’ll experience the beautiful connection of music to movement and the vitality it can add to our teaching.
About Kris:
Kris Olson has taught music and movement for over 35 years. Before moving to Texas, Kris taught in public, private, rural, and urban elementary schools across Minnesota. Currently, Kris teaches as a private contractor in Lubbock, Texas with a focus in early childhood and family-based music and dance. She offers after school classes for elementary students that integrate bucket drumming, body percussion, and singing and she leads the children’s Border Morris team, Coyote Morris. Kris adjuncts in dance at Texas Tech University and teaches workshops and summer classes at various universities. She has her master’s degree in Orff Schulwerk from the University of St. Thomas. While living in Minneapolis, Kris studied dance at Zenon Dance Company and was a founding member of Schulfunk, an Orff based performance group that combined song, dance, and percussion. Her current musical hobbies include playing doumbek in Texas Tech’s Balkan ensemble and improving her skills on her covid instrument, the bodhrán.