Baila Bomba! Latin Dance Lesson for Kids

My students have been working on a cultural unit comparing life in Puerto Rico to life in America. I did a similar unit last year with Mexico. (click here and here to read those) Many of the lesson in that unit can be adapted for any Spanish speaking country.

One lesson that could clearly not be overlooked would be one on the dancing in Puerto Rico. Though many would look to salsa as the main dance, I thought it would be more appropriate to focus on the lesser known dance and music of Bomba.  

courtesy of puertoricodaytrips.com

For this lesson I borrowed a conga drum from the music teacher at my school. You can essentially use any drum you would like, but it needs to be hit with your hands. I then explained to my students that we were learning a dance from Puerto Rico that required the drummer and the dancer to be in sync. I asked one student to model this with me playing the drums and them trying to move in sync to my rhythm. Here is a video of some of the basic steps, if you are unfamiliar with bomba (I did not show this video in my class.) Instead of explicitly teaching the steps, I wanted my students to understand the main point of the dance, which is the connection between the drummers and the dancers.

I then showed my students a video of kids dancing Bomba in Puerto Rico. This video over others was picked because it shows children, who look like my students, appreciating and enjoying this kind of dance. The video shows each dancer doing their solo, and working with the drummers to create a rhythm unique to each dancer. My students loved the video.

I then gave students the chance to dance to the same music the children in the video were dancing to. I knew that over the course of teaching so many classes, some students would get nervous about dancing in front of their peers, so I told them that anyone who did not want to dance, could be 'drummers.' The 'drummers' job was to drum to the same beat of the music as dancers danced to the beat.

Then students split up into groups and each had a chance to collaborate to create a solo move as a group. Each group then presented their solo move to the same music (from the above video.) It was a really great lesson, in that it was very student lead way of learning about another culture. I wish I had a video of it, but I hope you all get the idea and can re-create this lesson in your classrooms!