Overview

Prerequisite Knowledge

Students will need to listen and work in a space together as a group for movement activities.

Focus

These mini lessons integrate stories/language and songs into the kindergarten or grade one curriculum. Students will explore creative movement ideas based on these stories and song.

Materials and Resources
  • Story books, music – see list in the lesson plans
  • A large carpeted space in the kindergarten classroom or grade one classroom works best for these pieces.
Special Notes

Books may be substituted to fit the classroom curriculum. These are simply ideas and books to start integrating creative movement into the class.

Warm-ups

  • Could include simple stretches on the carpet when a story is finished or songs like “Head and Shoulders,” or “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.
  • A partner Pat –a-cake song is “A Sailor Went to Sea.” On the words “see, see, see”, the students clap hands together. On “knee, knee, knee” they pat their own knees and stamp their feet.
    • Words: “A sailor went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see and all that he could see, see, see, was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea. “
    • Teachers could take some time to teach “sea” and “see” – students do the same actions for both words. In verse 2, substitute the word “knee” for “see” and on verse 3, substitute “stamp”.  For fun on the final verse, students can combine all three moves (“sea”, “knee”, “stamp” – students like to do this as a warm up activity.

Story Dance

The Animal Boogie

ISBN 1-905236-22-0 By Debbie Harter, comes with a CD sung by Fred Penner and is filled with many actions. In the story, she uses dance words that could be made into creative movement: “shake, swing, flap, leap, stomp, slither, sway, and boogie”! Students could individually follow along with the actions and the music. After this, small groups may be able to combine some of the action words (try 3 words at first) to create their own patterns. Have students repeat the sequences.

YouTube Link
Five Little Monkeys book cover

Five Little Monkeys

ISBN 0-590-99459-X By Eileen Christelow has many possibilities to explore movement. Comparing the actions in these books and writing down key action words allows students to move and create dance sequences.   Some discussion questions could include: “Where else could we jump since we don’t have beds at school?” Another book, “Five Little Monkeys sitting in a Tree,” uses the action words: “walk, climb, catch, sit, and snap”.

YouTube Link
One Light One Sun book cover

One Light, One Sun

ISBN – 0-517-57644-9 By Raffi, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes and published by Crown Publishers, Inc. This is a beautiful song/story which could have movement added to it. Instead of having individual students create movement, have the class become a big circle to represent the sun.   The sun could slowly move in one direction then another. The sun could rise and go down. The sun makes people happy in this story. Ask the students what group actions they could suggest to do for this book. Put each phrase on the board or chart paper and have the students give their suggestions.

YouTube Link
Color Dance book cover

Color Dance

ISBN 0-688-05990-2 By Ann Jonas, published by Greenwillow Books of New York, is a fantastic read aloud and dance. Using scarves and/or ribbons for this story would be beautiful. The story includes a lesson on mixing primary colours and the new colours they make. The students in the story dance to create colours. It could be integrated nicely with an art lesson on colours.   After reading the book a few times, have the students explore in groups of colours. For example, have 5 students be the colour red, 5 students be yellow and 5 students be blue. As the story goes on, more and more colours evolve. Colours could also equal a move. Make lists of the colours on the board (if you have those markers, that would be fantastic), and connect a move with a colour. Have fun with this book!

YouTube Link
Mister Seahorse book cover

Mister Seahorse

ISBN 0-399-24269-4 By Eric Carle, published by Philomel Books New York, has some interesting possibilities for movement. (Other Eric Carle books may also work well to explore creative movements.) After reading the story a couple of times to the students, go back through the book and make a list of the animals and things in the ocean. For example, Mr. Seahorse, Mrs. Seahorse, trumpet fish, reeds, lion fish, coral reef, tilapia, leaf fish, seaweed etc. Assign something to every student in the class. When reading the story again the students become these parts. Discuss how seaweed would move, and how fish move before doing this. Remind them that they need to listen closely to the teacher reading to not miss their parts and that fish do not talk like we do!

YouTube Link

Further Suggestions

  • The BOOK SHOP shared reading series for Kindergarten “Let’s Sing About It” is a great resource for moving, reading and singing.  It has shared reading lessons and writing activities, CD’s, and big books/charts already prepared to use. After introducing the text and going through a variety of the lessons, students are ready to explore movement. Some of the ones that work best are: “The Monster Stomp” by John Perry, ISBN 1-59034-925-3; “A Mouse Snack” by Frank Piazza and Mark Vineis, ISBN 1-59034-927-X; and “Walking in the Woods”  by J.J. Jones and Mark Vineis, ISBN  1-59034-928-8.
  • Music Builders Kindergarten ISBN 0-7702-1900-4 and Music Builders I ISBN 0-7702-1905-5 have excellent music and movement resources. They come with CDs and lesson plans for creative movement.