use visual images of:
- cultural dance movements, bodybuilding, ballet dancers, gymnasts in action, and people at work,
- a range of body types in a variety of movement poses,
- newspaper action photos and other pictures of people playing sports;
discuss these visuals with the students, relating them to the different body parts and muscle actions needed to move in these ways.

Direct the students to make strong, muscle-person shapes. They could:
- tighten all their muscles so that they feel as if they are bulging;
- press their legs into the floor so that their leg muscles feel tight and then relax them;
- make a specific muscle shape and freeze those muscles into that shape.
Ask them:
- can you tighten your arm muscles?
- can you move through space using your muscles?
- can you make strong, muscular jumps? Do they have to be loud?
The students could try strong muscular skips, gallops, runs, leaps, hops, walks, and slides. Ask them whether their movements have to be big, slow, or loud to be strong. Ask them to try strong, muscular movements that are quick, soft, and small.
Play music and encourage the students to individually practise a variety of muscle-dance movements and to hold their positions.
While the students are dancing, interject with suggestions to add variety to their movement patterns. Call out for them to make low, high, wide, thin, fast, slow, smooth, rigid, swinging, big, or little movements and to move forwards or backwards.
Take photographs of individual students as they create their muscle dances. The students could write captions (for the photos of themselves) that answer the following questions: What are you doing in this picture? What parts of your body are you using? (1A1)

Variations and extensions to this activity could include the following:

In pairs, the students could link a number of body positions together to form a sequence.
The students could isolate specific muscles in sequence by tensing and releasing them.
The students could form pairs and take turns to create a variety of held positions which their partner could copy.

Assessment opportunity

Students identify the different parts of the body they use to create movement sequences (1A1).

Teachers' notes

Resources required for this activity could include:

a range of music reflecting a variety of moods, such as the music in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.
the Newspapers in Education resource Athletes in Action.

When collecting suitable visual images, ensure that the selection shown to the students includes a range of genders, ethnicity, body shapes, and performed activities and that the collected images do not perpetuate stereotypes.

Movement skills

To improve their locomotor and non-locomotor skills, the students need to learn how to control what their body is doing, how their body is moving, and where their body is moving.