The children
The children’s characters have been created for the story.These notes are designed for educators as they plan for learning with children in their group who may have similar characteristics.
Meet the Characters
Heder
Heder is learning English and feels most comfortable relating to children who speak his native tongue. He has a bit of separation anxiety and approaches learning with hesitancy, observing and considering before committing himself. In the story we watch him lose his balance during the dancing, land on the floor and hurt his knee.
Heder is naturally drawn to mathematical concepts such as grouping and patterning. Ruby hopes to encourage this gift to enable him to discover a connection between the patterns of the music and the plotting of the dance moves.
She is also aware that he would feel more comfortable and have a clearer idea of what to do in a small group setting where the dancing is broken down into smaller steps. Ruby plans to partner him with a child who is confident in both languages to play games that involve picture cards with directional language cues prior to starting the dancing as a whole group.
Luluya
Luluya is a sensitive soul and easily responds to sights, sounds and smells that ignite her sensory palette and distract her from the real world. In the story we witness how she is drawn to the miracle of the dancing colours of a rainbow that is reflected on a window pane.
Recently she has been having a tough time at home and, although she has a resilience that usually outweighs her current circumstances, this last incident has taken its toll. It is affecting her natural joy of learning and is causing her to be slightly introspective.
Ruby Cartwheel’s heart goes out to Luluya. She truly hopes that the free expression offered through movement will create comfort to calm the emotional turmoil going on in Luluya’s mind and foster her wellbeing. Ruby also hopes that her friend Sue’s natural affinity with dance will help Luluya to engage her sensory motor intelligence and reconnect with the other children in the group.
Sid
Sid has a keen sense of humour and loves moments of fun, especially if these involve playing with words and making nonsense rhymes. Ruby hopes that the rhythmical nature of the musical movement will appeal to his learning style and provide avenues for his learning to expand.
Sid lives with his Mum and has no space where he can play outside safely. Much of Sid’s play involves a screen with little movement. At school he can be super active and lacks proprioception, sometimes causing disruption for the other children, as seen with Heder who falls during the dancing.
Ruby has slowly built a relationship with him by engaging his wit and ensuring that she always has a ridiculous rhyme up her sleeve to share with him. She is sometimes challenged to redirect his energies and find new and different strategies to support his listening behaviour and improve his self-regulation.
In other areas of learning Ruby has observed Sid’s energy and confidence as he connects with other children and encourages them to have a go and step beyond their comfort zone. She believes that this group activity will give Sid a sense of collaboration with his peers and an opportunity to participate in a positive way.
Sue
Sue already has a strong sense of identity as a dancer and is now thrilled to bits that dancing is going to happen at school. She has two older sisters who also love to dance and together they often turn the music up, pull out a few costumes and spontaneously move to the sounds of the beat in their living room. Sue adores going to watch them dance on the stage and now she is beside herself that she too will be dancing on a real stage with not only her classmates but also her cousin who is playing his flute in the school band.
Ruby Cartwheel knows that Sue and dancing are a natural match and believes that her enthusiasm will be contagious, drawing in other children who are less keen, especially her best friend Luluya, who is currently a little disengaged from learning.
However, Sue doesn’t like making mistakes and can be risk adverse, which occasionally can hamper her potential. Ruby feels that being involved in a group setting will provide a bit of a buffer for her and lessen Sue’s anxieties, giving her an opportunity to spread her wings as a dancer.
The teacher, Ruby
Ruby Cartwheel listens to the beat of every child’s heart and is moved to create magic for them. Her aim is simple. She wants each child to find their own joy in learning. The reader will experience this through the narrative and illustrations and be pulled into the charismatic warmth of Ruby’s character.
The story shows her intuitive ability to capture the essence of each child and encourage their learning, helping each child to move from where they are to where they naturally aspire to. As we turn the pages the children’s spirits rise as they increasingly feel emotionally secure and physically cared for.
The other bit of Ruby that we don’t see expressed in the book is her internal conflict between what she is expected to do to meet measures of accountability and what she believes in her heart is needed for each child to blossom. She is very concerned about the prevalence of anxiety and depression in the young today and wants to give them ‘a fresh zing ’. She believes movement dissipates negative energy, which can inhibit a child’s ability to learn, and laughter opens a door to free the child from a fear of making mistakes.
The reader is invited to witness how successful she has been in her quest.