Alphabet Books

I love alphabet books and the many ways young children can engage with these concept books. Today I would like to highlight four (and please note that one additional one was highlighted in my last post.)

Let's start with the Smithsonian Institution's Alphabet of Dance by Barbie Heit Schwaeber. This 2010 publication offers a great variety of images of dance styles from around the world. I especially love the number of images of male dancers. While the examples bounce around from dance vocabulary to a variety of dance styles, the strength lies in the pictures. This book is a great addition to libraries for children in preschool-second grade. 

Don't be fooled by the title of the next book, A Dictionary of Dance. Liz Murphy's 2007 book is a wonderful alphabet book with a rich vocabulary of dance words for both young boys and girls: breakdancing, folk dance, improvisation, stage, and more.

Alphabet Movers by Teresa Benzwie (2002) is filled with beautiful action words to inspire warm up activities, improvisations, or words to create a dance with students ages 4-7. 

Last, I would like to mention A Child's Day: An Alphabet of Play by Ida Pearle. The artwork is simply wonderful and joyful. The words are of simple actions, such as eat, feed, grow, hide, and jump. I have used this as a starting activity in preschool classes, and each student could "dance" his/her favorite page. This book can be a great springboard with preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students, exploring how to take everyday actions to create a dance.

Alphabet books on movement and dance are multi-functional for young children, to articulate the language of dance as well as starting points for movement explorations.