On Wednesday evening, fifth graders from Thurston Elementary School showed off their ballroom dancing moves for family and friends during the school's third annual dinner dance.

For the past nine weeks, students have worked with physical education teacher Paul Test and Calvin and Jackie Siebert (also known as Mr. and Mrs. Smooth) to teach the students club ballroom dances. The dance instruction — which involved side-by-side dancing, rather than face-to-face — took the place of gym class once a week.

The program started three years ago after Test and Thurston principal Patricia Manley met with Glenda Sneed from the University of Michigan Health System's Program for Multicultural Health to discuss multicultural approaches to fitness.

"We wanted to teach the kids something they can do for the rest of their life," Test said. "Dancing is a lifetime activity and crosses cultures."

The group then got connected to the Sieberts because Manley had taken dance lessons from them previously.

Test said he and Manley will present their program to a group of physical education teachers from across the Ann Arbor Public Schools district later this year, in an effort to expand it to other schools.

Click below to see a slideshow of photos taken by freelance photographer Mark Bialek from the dinner dance:

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