This dance workshop aligns with Grade 3 Module 3: A New Home.

I Can Salsa & More! is a joyful experience using music and movement to promote developmental growth and explore the cultural, environmental, relational roots of Latin dance. The workshop promotes cognitive, social-emotional, and relational intelligence skills, as well as explores the artistic cultural and environmental characteristics of communication from varying regions.

The entire workshop is interactive from start to finish. First, students are asked to form a circle with the instructor and attending staff. The circle encourages communal contact between instructor, staff, and students as one, as well as emphasize the connection to traditional cultural practices of artistic expression.

Next students and staff participate in nonstop structured instructor lead activities that include: age-appropriate dance choreography (3-4 songs). Students are dancing following instructor. Opportunity for creative expression will be encouraged (1 song).

Students are encouraged to dance. Before each activity, a brief explanation of the geographic region where the song or dance originated will be discussed and lyrics in other languages will be translated. Geographic regions may include Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, South America, and the Middle East. Discussions will be encouraged to connect geographic regions from around the world to local communities in the City of Hartford.

Each of the activities is brief and easy enough to spark interest in further exploration and celebrates students who have recently come from the various regions. Connections will be made to "Waiting for the Biblioburro," Monica Brown and John Parra for Grade 1, The Vegetables We Eat, Gail Gibbons for Grade 2, and Coming to America: The Story of Immigration, Betsy Maestro for Grade 3.