Dancing Words Blog

Author: Jill Randall

  • Skipping

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    I love dance lessons that focus on the basic locomotor steps: walking, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping, and leaping.

    Ready, Set, Skip! is a joyful picture book for students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. The main character struggles with skipping, but with a little encouragement from her mother, she tries and learns how to skip.

    This book (by Jane O'Connor with illustrations by Ann James) can be a great introduction in a dance class or a fun book for parents and children to enjoy together.

     

  • Animal Inspiration

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    I love the children's book illustrator Joelle Jolivet. Jolivet's oversized, beautifully illustrated books Zoo-ology and Panorama (with author Fani Marceau) are great springboards for dance classes with an animal theme. In Zoo-ology, the animals are classified in categories such as "underground," "at night," and "in the trees." Panorama shows animals in a variety of environments.

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    You can use these books with students ages 5-10 to explore shape, tableaux, level, tempo, and much more. 

  • Summertime

     As I think about various themes and springboards for summer semester dance classes for students in grades 3-5, I think back to past lessons where I used the music "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. There are lots of great versions of this song. One summer semester we choreographed to several pieces, and I also included reading this book (Summertime by Dubose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward, Ira Gershwin, and George Gershwin), with the actual lyrics of the song. It was a great opportunity to talk about dancing "along with the lyrics" versus dancing with a song, relating to the general theme, feeling, etc. 

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    Also with the theme of summertime, and its special feeling, I suggest the book Summertime Waltz by Nina Payne and Gabi Swiatkowska. 

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  • For Librarians: A Bag Full of Dance Books

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    I was just visiting my husband's hometown of Sherborn, Massachusetts. We stopped by the local library to gather a stack of books for our two children to enjoy on our trip.

    As you enter the children's section of the library, they have several "book bags." There is a sign attached to each bag – trains, trucks, etc. What a great idea – gathering books together of commonly loved children's themes for families to peruse and check out.

    Librarians, I encourage you to try this fun idea too at your site, and please include a dance  book bag!

     

    *This tote bag is from Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, California.

  • Little Green/Pathways

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    I love exploring pathways in my dance classes with students in elementary school and middle school. One of my favorite books is Little Green by Keith Baker (2001). The book's main character is a hummingbird zig zagging (and more) around a garden. This book is a great visual representation and starting point for exploring pathways. You can riff off of the concept of hummingbirds too and explore tempo with your students. 

     

  • Summertime Themes: Clouds

    Happy summer! While I myself am on summer break, I do know that many teaching artists continue to work throughout the summer. I hope that the posts over the next month will inspire some summertime lessons for preschool-fifth grade students.

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    Today I am thinking about CLOUDS. Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker is a nice springboard for a dance with students in approximately 2nd-4th grades. Students will be able to work on solo and group shapes, different qualities of movement, and varying sizes of movement. The text begs for a multi-layered dance study over a few weeks to create a group dance.

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    For younger students, I recommend Little Cloud by Eric Carle. This book easily translates into a dance. I suggest reading it once to students (preschool age) and then reading it a second time, while having the students move at the same time.

    As always, please add a comment on the blog to help share more information with fellow teachers. Thank you!

     

  • 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.)

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    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. 

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    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.

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    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. 

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    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.

     

  • Young Thoughts of Ballet

    It is fascinating to me – now as an adult, a teacher, and a parent – to see when the "dream of a ballerina" fills a young child's daydreams, especially young girls. I was indeed that child. 

    At the K-8 school in which I teach dance full-time, the head librarian recently mentioned to me that Jill Krementz's book A Very Young Dancer still gets checked out. The copyright on this book is 1979. I love that it has held up all of these years, but I am also surprised at how few good, accurate, and inspiring books are available to young ones swept up in the idea of ballet.

    Today I would like to highlight two ballet books.

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    Ballerina!  by Peter Sis is available as a board book and hardback/paperback. It is perfect for children 2-6 years old. What makes this a good ballet book is two-fold. The action words are lovely: twirl, leap, tiptoe, reach, dip, flutter, and float. Second, Sis nicely references the major ballets in the book: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, etc. 

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    Second, I love Rachel Isadora's On Your Toes: A Ballet ABC.  This book is a more unique alphabet book with illustrations of young boys and girls. The language of the book references dance steps (develope, arabesque, etc) as well as elements used in ballet (music, costumes, etc.) Students ages 4-7 will enjoy this book. While out of print, you can easily find used copies  on the internet. 

    Ballet books can so easily fall into stereotypes, and I encourage you to check out these two book suggestions for a fresh take on ballet. 

  • Mermaids

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    I recently came across the book Mermaid Dance while browsing at Chronicle Books in San Francisco. Over the years, I have had "requests" for mermaid dances (by 3-5 year old children). This book could be a nice springboard for a class.

    The text is simple and not filled with a lot of movement inspiring action words, but the book can still serve as your starting point for a dance with young preschool age children. As a teacher, my mind goes to ideas of swimming, diving, special attire, crowns, circling motions, and quiet dancing. 

    You can purchase the book directly through Chronicle Books:

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  • Animal Movement, Part Two

    I would like to highlight four books that can be used as springboards in dance classes.

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    Eric Carle’s book From Head to Toe is a simple story that easily translates into a warm up exercise in a preschool class. As you read along, you and your students can wiggle, stretch, and bend. I like using this as a first activity in a class.

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    Denise Fleming’s In the Tall, Tall Grass and In the Small, Small Pond are full of actions. You can read aloud as you ask your students to improvise around your classroom. I would recommend these books for students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.

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    Last, Audrey Wood’s Quick as a Cricket can be read with students in preschool through 2nd grade. Using the entire book for a movement exploration might be too much, but using the text from one-third to one-half of the book could lead to a nice exploration of tempos, emotions, and more. (Teaching tip = if not reading the entire book, simply mark pages with post-it notes for quick access.)

    To me, the beauty of animal books is the rich action words (dart, dip, slip, slide, swoop, and glide). If your students are excited and curious about animals, this is a great hook into your dance classes. You do not have to have the students imitating the animals; let the language and images lead the way to movement possibilities.