Today was Decades Day, a spirit day at our school!
Everyone participated! We had students from the 1920s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
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| Photo by Mrs. Yollis |
Even teachers and the principal were ready to go!
For fun, students learned dances from a variety of decades!
We learned the Charleston, the Hand Jive, the Twist, and the Hustle.
Enjoy!
First, The Hustle. Thank you, 1970s!
Impromptu dance party at the library, the Twist!
Thank you, Chubby Checker and the 1960s!
Every decade has its fads. A fad is something that is widely shared with enthusiasm. It is also called a craze. A fad can come in the form of a dance, clothing, games, or even words.
Parents, students, and readers, what are some fads that you remember? Please share with my students!
Via Twitter, we have one dance fad from the 1970s, breakdancing!
Via Twitter, we have one dance fad from the 1970s, breakdancing!
Dear class,
ReplyDeleteI had such a fun time dancing with you on Decades Day! Who knew there were so many fabulous fads!
I can think of many fun fads from my youth. In the late 60s, we used to take a playing card and attach it to our bike wheel using a clothes pin. The card was placed in such a way that when the wheel moved, the card clicked on the spokes. The faster you rode, the faster the sound! After a while, the card would wear out and need to be replaced with a new playing card. The new cards sounded the best!
In the 70s, there were a lot of funny fashion fads. (Hey, that was great alliteration!) My friends and I all wore bell bottom pants and platform shoes. Many girls had such long bell bottom jeans that they completely covered their platform shoes! Recently, I've notices some people wearing similar clothes. I wonder if that fashion fad is coming back? :-)
I can't wait to hear what parents, grandparents, and friends remember from their early life!
Yours truly,
Mrs. Y♥llis
I can remember when my dad brought home the soundtrack for a movie called Saturday Night Fever and the hustle and disco dancing became all the rage. I was probabaly in 3rd grad just like you all are now.
ReplyDeleteLove the videos of the class dancing! You kids sure have the moves!
Michael (Allie's Dad).
Dear Mrs. Yollis and Class,
ReplyDeleteWow! I enjoyed your spirited, energetic dance videos immensely. You are all so vivacious and so coordinated, too! Even the adults!
I have a story to tell you about a fad from my youth. When I was very, very young, these new dolls called Cabbage Patch Dolls came out. They were so popular that people would stand in very long lines outside Toys R Us to get one. My mom went and stood in the very long line, but when she got near the front of the line, she found out that each person could only purchase two. My mom was faced with a real conundrum because she had three children! She felt devastated that she couldn't buy one for each of her children.
A stranger who was in line next to my mom noticed my mom's sullen face and disappointed reaction. What do you think happened next? (I will give you a hint and tell you that this story is a good example of kindness to strangers.)
I can't wait to check back and see if any of you can correctly guess what happened next.
Sincerely,
Lisa (Nolan's Mom)
Dear Mrs. Yollis and Class,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed watching your dance videos! Great coordination by the students and choreographing by the teachers! TheTwist was a very popular dance that was a fad when I was in grade school. My friends and I practiced it all the time so we would be ready for the next school dance.
Your costumes were very authentic. My Grandson, Nolan, wore the exact clothing one of my neighbors wore to school every day when I was a kid. My neighbor was in high school when I was in grade school. The white tee shirt with rolled up short sleeves and jeans were classic attire at that time! My neighbor also slicked back his hair so he looked a lot like Fonzie from "Happy Days".
When I was in second grade, I was in a car accident and had to stay home from school for a whole week. To cheer me up, my Aunt gave me the latest fad, a Hula Hoop. It was powder blue and I loved it. I couldn’t play with it right away but, when I did, it was so much fun. I had to give the Hula Hoop a good spin around my waist to get the motion started. Then I had to keep my hips rotating to keep the Hula Hoop spinning around me faster and faster. Great exercise!
Have you ever seen a Hula Hoop? It was a fad that was resurrected many decades later so it became a “new” toy to a whole “new” group of kids.
The other fad I loved when I was little older and could wear makeup was polishing my nails with frosty white nail polish and wearing frosted white lipstick. Now that I think of it, my friends and I must have looked pretty ghostly but I’m quite sure my parents probably thought we just looked ghastly. We, however, thought we looked very cool and I don’t mean cool as in frosty! Anything we thought was really great, we called cool!
Thank you for bringing back some very happy memories!
Sincerely,
Barb (Nolan’s Grandma from Wisconsin aka Grandma Barb)
Dear Mrs. Yollis and Class,
ReplyDeleteI really loved getting to watch the videos of you dancing on Decade's Day. You looked like you were having so much fun! And I can tell that you all put a lot of effort into picking clothes that represented different eras of the past. Was it fun to see what other classmates choose to wear?
@Lisa (Nolan’s mom) – I remember the Cabbage Patch “fad” so well! My best friend gave me a Cabbage Patch Kid for my 9th birthday (the same age most of the class turned or are turning this school year). Her mom had to wait in a long line as well to purchase it. And I still have it! I bought my daughter one of the newer Cabbage Patch Kids several years ago. She rarely played with it and within a year or two, that was one of the very few toys she was willing to get rid of during Spring Cleaning. I was disappointed that she didn’t have the love of Cabbage Patch Kids that I had when I was a young girl. I guess that is one of the signs of a true “fad” – it didn’t hold the test of time.
Another fad that I remember was big hair! In the ‘80s, people used lots of hair spray so that their hair would stick up or out – and take up a large area of space around their head. I used to try to get my bangs to stand up a bit. I have to admit I never did a very good job of it and in looking at old photos, it looked pretty silly!
@Class – Do you think that there is anything that you like or an activity that you take part in that will be considered a fad in 10 or 20 years’ time?
Sincerely,
April (Dylan B.’s mom)
Your dancing on Decades Day looks like it was so much fun - I watched each video. It was great to see the kids and the teachers having such a good time. Dancing is both healthy and good for the mind. Dylan B's great grandma Janet once came to one of Dylan B's mother's classes to demonstrate dancing the Hula. She always loved to dance.
DeleteDear Mrs. Yollis and Class,
ReplyDeleteWow! What rad dance moves you all have have!
As Mrs. Yollis said, fads can also come in the form of words too. Rad was and still is one of my most favorite words. It was a fad in the 1980's.
Rad means that something is really cool or really great. It is a slang adjective. Have you learned what slang is yet?
Rad is technically an abbreviation of the word "radical." However, their meanings are slightly different. Rad is always positive but radical can be used in a positive, neutral or negative way, both as a verb and a noun!
I hope you are all having a totally rad day today!
What word do you use that may one day be considered a fad, like rad? (Hey! That rhymes!)
All my best,
Jenny (Dylan B's Auntie and his mom April's best friend who gave her the Cabbage Patch Kid for her 9th birthday.)
Dear Mrs. Yollis,
ReplyDeleteIn the 1980 ’s, a big fad was a doll called Cabbage Patch Kids. How you would get it? People would line up at toy stores for hours just to get one. This doll was new and exciting for everyone. One of the reasons was that every Cabbage Patch Kid had a birth certificate that showed you the first and middle names and birth date. If it was me, it would say “Rose London, April 17.” And that is why cabbage patch kids were a fad.
Fondly,
Rose
Dear class,
ReplyDeleteI visited your blog today and saw this very amusing post about your Decades Dance Party. Your post made me so interested in this event I watched the video and read all of the comments......and forgot what I visited the blog for! What a fun time you must have had.
You would not remember me, but I was the principal at Chaparral about 8 years ago I think. I have never forgotten what a terrific blog this is, and sometimes when I am trying to inspire someone to create these types of blogs, I make a visit to see what your classroom is up to now. I really enjoyed seeing great teachers and students celebrating all the different dance styles and then writing about different fads.
I would love to read more, but I need to get back to work at my new school in Newport Beach. When I was at Chaparral, I was a "Cub" and now I am a "Shark" - that is funny, I think.
Happy dancing,
Mrs. Harding