On Thursday, fourth-grade students at Roanoke’s Fishburn Park Elementary School will dance their way through their Virginia Studies curriculum.

It may be hard to picture 9- and 10-year-olds portraying the Jamestown settlement through dance but that’s exactly what they plan to do, according to their instructors and their principal.

The 49 fourth-graders at Fishburn are taking part in Roanoke’s first Minds in Motion program, an educational initiative from the Richmond Ballet. The program has been around for 13 years, but this is its first year in Roanoke.

Fishburn’s dancers will join other Minds in Motion dancers from Richmond and Martinsville on Thursday for a free performance at 7 p.m. at Patrick Henry High School. They will perform an encore at 10 a.m. Friday for fellow elementary school students.

“It’s learning the curriculum through dance,” said Brett Bonda , the Minds in Motion director for the Richmond Ballet. “Although there’s nothing wrong with it just being a dance program. The program is very much about physical fitness as well.”

Pedro Szalay , a former dancer with the ballet company, has been choreographing the students and making them comfortable with dancing.

“Some kids in the beginning say 'I’m not going to dance.’ Especially the boys but you know they kind of get encouragement to be a part of something disciplined,” he said.

Fishburn Principal David Amos  said he was skeptical at first that the boys would want to join in.

“They from Day One wanted to do it,” he said. “You should see them now.”

Dancing is helping some of them overcome academic difficulties. One student who missed a lot of school last year has improved his attendance considerably after joining the program, Szalay said.

Fourth-grade students “will try anything,” Bonda said. They’re eager to pick up the moves and follow the instructor, he said.

“They don’t even realize they’re dancing,” he said. “They’re out there doing what they’re told to do.”

The first Minds in Motion program started with roughly 60 students in a single Richmond school. Now it serves 19 Richmond schools and 1,400 children. \

About 250 students in three schools in Martinsville take part in the program as well.

A few Minds in Motion alumni have gone on to study dance and to consider dancing careers.

“We have some that are now in college for dance,” Bonda said. “Some that are apprentices in the company.”

Bonda said he’d like to see the program expand to other Roanoke schools in the next few years.

“We are trying to spread it around the state,” he said.

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It’s not unusual for principals to challenge their students by dangling the promise of a sweet reward in exchange for doing well in school. Some principals offer to throw pizza parties. Others have volunteered to have their heads shaved.

Gloria Randolph-King,  principal at Forest Park Elementary School in Roanoke, has seemingly one-upped them all. On Friday, she will kiss a pig to reward her students for reaching their reading goal. Forest Park students have read more than 5,000 books since November.

The school is also throwing a pig-themed party for its students with refreshments in the cafeteria.

After that, it’s back to the books. There are only a few short weeks before the Standards of Learning tests start.