Dancing Words Blog

Category: Colors

Green on Green by Dianne White

Oh, this is such a wonderful book, which combines two of my favorite themes – the seasons and colors! Green on Green is a 2020 publication by Dianne White, with illustrator Felicita Sala.

Check this out for explorations with K-4 students. The rhyming, poetic text is beautifully chunked, naturally lending itself to sections and "parts" for small groups of students.

Yellow the flower.

Yellow the seed.

Yellow and black the buzzing bee.

Lemonade petals.

Sunflakes between.

Lemonade, sunflakes, and yellow on green.

Spring the meadow.

Spring the pond.

Spring the season of new birds' song.

So begins the book! Check out author Dianne White reading it here in this Youtube video.

The text offers space for multiple kinds of explorations. You and your students might create a shape or movement for each line, or for each section as a whole. It is a great springboard for playing with literal ideas and also poetic/abstracted expressions. As for music, may I suggest "Toufoula" by Ballaké Sissoko, Driss El Maloumi and Rajery?

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February 8, 2021
Blue by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Colors are an ever popular theme in dance classes. I was excited to see Laura Vaccaro Seeger's latest creation, Blue. You might be familiar with her book Green already.

Explore this book with elementary age students. Start off with a group brainstorm – what do you think of that is blue? Capture ideas on chart paper. Then, pull out a variety of scarves, pieces of fabric, and ribbons of varying shades of blue. Improvise, trade, and dance some more.

The book Blue offers delightful text to try out through small group sections, taking inspiration from the words and the images. "Very blue" relates to blue butterflies…."midnight blue" refers to nighttime…."new blue" shows the ebb and flow of the ocean. Consider using the props within your dance as well.

For music, check out "Into the Sea" or "Broken Arrow" by The Album Leaf. And, to find more dancing books about colors, click here.

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January 6, 2019
What Color Makes Your Heart Sing? (For K-3 dance classes)
I am always on the lookout for books for dance classes – to explore colors, emotions, and also poetic text to narrate a group dance. What Color Makes Your Heart Sing? (Margot Vance-Borland and Ari Vance-Borland) is reminiscent of an older book, Caretakers of Wonder. Check out this 2016 book if you work with K-3 students.

The text lends itself to small group work, students selecting their favorite sections, props, and more.

Some people come on the blue wave. They love oceans and sky and blueberries in the summer. They like to lie on their backs and look up at the blue, blue sky.

Some people come on the green wave….nourished and fed by the green hillsides and trees. Standing in the forest with bright green sprouts poking out of the ground.

Some people come on the pink ray…they love roses and little pink flowers that line the path where they dance. When they see pink, they feel happy inside…

Very quickly – you get a sense of the text and its tone and movement potential.

I also envision a beginning section of a group dance and a similar ending section. Students can have long pieces of fabric or scarves, and they travel across the space color by color. We see a wash and wave of red….blue….green…etc. Shape their traveling phrases to include locomotor and axial movements.

Music ideas include:
- "Toufoula" by Ballaké Sissoko, Driss El Maloumi, and Rajery (3MA album)
- "So Long Lonesome" by Explosions in the Sky
- "Walk in the Sky (Instrumental)" by Bonobo
- "Clocks" by Vitamin String Quartet (cover of the Coldplay song)
Other books with a similar tone and movement potential include:
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September 10, 2017
Creating Your Book Collection on “Color”

I love the theme of colors – making a dance related to a particular color and images/feelings, or dancing with a prop of a particular color.

Here is a great list of books to have on hand for ideas and inspiration. You might not necessarily read all of these books cover to cover, but can easily reference them for dance ideas. Create a "book bin" if you can. (I love having "color" and "alphabet" book bins for preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade dance classes.)

Books exploring a variety of colors:

Creature Colors – Andrew Zuckerman

Pantone: Colors – Pantone

Color – Ella Doran, David Goodman, and Zoe Miller

Living Color – Steve Jenkins

Color Me a Rhyme – Jane Yolen

Encyclopedia of Rainbows: Our World Organized by Color – Julie Seabrook Ream

My Many Colored Days – Dr. Seuss with Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

What Color Makes Your Heart Sing? – Margot Vance-Borland

The Rainbow Book – Kate Ohrt

Books on a particular color:

Green – Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Water Sings Blue – Kate Coombs and Meilo So

Yellow Time - Lauren Stringer

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August 19, 2017
Yellow Time – To Explore Colors, the Season of Fall, and Props

Yellow Time by Lauren Stringer is a picture book with numerous possibilities within a dance class for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classes. Check out this book if you are interested in exploring: colors, the season of fall, props, or turning a story into a group dance.

Colors

Yellow! The book is about a tree turning a beautiful yellow. My research has yet to find a book just on the color yellow, so this is a great opportunity to explore this primary color.

To see other books about colors and rainbows, click here.

The Season of Fall

"Fall/autumn" is always a rich theme for dance classes – to explore change and transformation, the actions of falling and floating, and props to represent leaves and various colors.

To see other books about the seasons, click here.

Props

The story of Yellow Time inspires me to give each student some yellow fabric (or scarves) to create some dancing leaves. Students LOVE props and the simple joy of something in their hand to toss, sway, circle, and zigzag. Head to your local fabric store to purchase a few yards of fabric. You can purchase tulle for everyone, or select a variety of fabrics in varying shades of yellow.

A Story into a Dance

Lauren Stringer's story easily leads to a full dance with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The students can be the crows in the trees. They can fly in and then be still (as dance students practice shapes and stillness). The crows can "hide" yellow pieces of fabric behind their backs, and then the leaves begin to dance. Use a music selection from Vivaldi's Four Seasons……

Crows love yellow time.

They fill still-leafy trees with their voices announcing it's coming to everyone.

Just before yellow time, the air smells different. Like wet mud and dry grass with a sprinkle of sugar.

Yellow time comes before white time. Every time.

Everyone is ready. The trees can't hold on forever.

The sky billows gray with clouds, and then it begins…..Whoosh! Whoosh! WHOOSH!

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Lauren Stringer has also illustrated other books mentioned on this blog:

Deer Dancer

When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky

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July 16, 2017
Alphabet Series: The Letter R
When you and your students explore the letter R, these books can be springboards and inspiration for improvisations and dance projects. R is for: red, ribbons, rainbows, raindrops, running, and rectangles.

R is for Red

To explore the color red, you can pull out all of your books about colors. Four examples include: My Many Colored Days, Colour, Living Color, and The Rainbow Book. What are our associations with red? How can we translate these ideas into movement? Ideally, see if you can pull out 3-5 books on color. Look at the red pages, and then explore movement ideas related to these pages. You can even string the 3-5 ideas together.

R is for Ribbons

Students love exploring props. Purchase some spools of ribbon at the local fabric or craft store (enough so that each student has a piece 24 inches in length).

Carole Lexa Schaeffer's book The Squiggle is a favorite of mine. In the story, the ribbon becomes many different things and images. The book's text easily can translate into a dance.
R is for Rainbows

Surprisingly, there are only a few children's stories related to rainbows. The two that I keep coming back to for dancing inspiration are:
- Don Freeman's 1978 book A Rainbow of My Own
- What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartiz and illustrator Dona Turner
Purchase some reasonably priced tulle at the fabric store in a variety of rainbow colors.

As mentioned above, The Rainbow Book by Kate Ohrt is a unique addition to your collection of books about colors and emotions. Instead of images of people or animals, the art in the book is a series of paper cut outs, reminiscent of handmade snowflakes or Mexican cutout banners:

The text on each page will inspire an improv, or help you create a group dance. "When I feel orange, I am energetic and strong…..When I feel blue, I am calm and peaceful."

R is for Raindrops

Rain is coming. You can feel it in the air.

So begins the new picture book Raindrops Roll by April Pulley Sayre.

With clear photographs and poetic text, this is an example of a book where the words literally dance off the page and inspire students to move. Most of the text can be directly used to create actions and movement phrases. Verbs include: plop, drop, patter, spatter, wash, weigh down, and thud.

Try out the instrumental song "Halinkata Djoubé" by Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Siegel for your project.

R is for Running

"Run run run as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man!"

So goes the classic chant from The Gingerbread Boy. I love Richard Egielski's version of the tale, this time taking place in the city. Even young students quickly catch on and remember the chant. (For the chant, I have the students run in place.)

R is for Rectangles

Reference picture books and poetry books that talk about various shapes. From there, students can make rectangle shapes with other students. You can also make loops of elastic (about 4 feet in length) so that students can use the elastics to explore rectangles as well.
Books to reference include:
- When a Line Bends….A Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene and illustrator James Kaczman
- Shape Me a Rhyme by Jane Yolen and photographer Jason Stemple
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April 5, 2015
Alphabet Series: The Letter O

When you and your students explore the letter O, these books can be springboards and inspiration for improvisations and dance projects.

O is for Opposites

Opposites are always a wonderful concept to explore in movement. I love the picture book A High, Low, Near, Far, Loud, Quiet Story by Nina Crews. (You can find used copies on amazon.com.) Use the words to create a simple warm up or improv activity, or create a dance with the entire text.

O is for Ocean

I love finding pictures books that can easily create an improv structure.

Robert Neubecker's book has sparse text, but dense images of a day at the ocean. The main character, Izzy, heads to the beach one day. With each turn of the page, she explores another aspect of the beach and ocean world – tide pools, shells, fish, sting rays, and coral reefs. There is even a sunken ship.

You could set up an improv that could be repeated several times in your dance classes. With each page, the students could be exploring that environment (ex. dancing through a coral reef) or be that environment or animal (ex. move like sharks). Each spread begins with the word "wow" ("Wow! Tide pool!…..Wow! Fish!"). The word "wow" could be the cue for students to pause to get ready to transition to the next idea.

Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems is one of favorite children's poetry books to use in dance classes. The poetry is by Kate Coombs, with illustrations by Meilo So. Both text and paintings are full of magic, whimsy, and imagery to inspire movement with students.

From start to finish, the poems take you on a journey along the shore and in the water. Topics include: sand, tide pools, waves, jellyfish, squid, and coral. The poems lend themselves to a variety of projects for both small groups (solos and duets) and whole group vignettes. You could easily use all or most poems in the book to create a beautiful performance with your class.

O is for Orange

To explore the color orange, you can pull out all of your books about colors. Four examples include: My Many Colored Days, Colour, Living Color, and The Rainbow Book. What are our associations with orange? How can we translate these ideas into movement? Ideally, see if you can pull out 3-5 books on color. Look at the orange pages, and then explore movement ideas related to these pages. You can even string the 3-5 ideas together.

Using Your Book Bin of Alphabet Books

As I suggested in the first post of this alphabet series, creating a book bin of alphabet books is a great idea. For example with the letter O, look at all of the "O pages" in your bin. Have students pair up, and give each pair one alphabet book. Ask them to find the O page. What movement or shape can they create related to that page? Give each pair a chance to share in front of the class. Again, you can string all of the ideas together to create an "O Dance."

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February 8, 2015
The Rainbow Book by Kate Ohrt
The Rainbow Book by Kate Ohrt is a unique addition to your collection of books about colors and emotions. If you work with 4-7 year olds, check out this book.

Instead of images of people or animals, the art in the book is a series of paper cut outs, reminiscent of handmade snowflakes or Mexican cutout banners:

Seven colors are represented in the book:
1. Pink
2. Red
3. Orange
4. Yellow
5. Green
6. Blue
7. Purple
The text on each page will inspire an improv, or help you create a group dance. "When I feel orange, I am energetic and strong…..When I feel blue, I am calm and peaceful."

The Rainbow Book will be a great springboard to explore different emotions and different movement qualities with students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.

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October 13, 2014
The Color Green
Exploring COLORS with children is always full of
possibility, for students in preschool all the way up to eighth grade.
- Explore all of our associations with a color and
  what in our world is that color
- Play with props (fabric, ribbons, hoops) of a
  specific color
- Explore emotions related to each color
Today, let’s focus on GREEN. Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s
Caldecott Honor Book, Green, is a
perfect introduction for a project or activity associated with green. The
poetic text can also easily translate into a dance – “forest green…sea
green….slow green….glow green….” Seeger’s book looks at objects, animals, and
environments that are the color.

Use Green with
students in preschool-2^nd grade.

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October 21, 2013
Alphabet Series: The Letter C

When you and your students explore the letter C, some of these books can be springboards and inspiration for improvisations and dance projects.

C is for Clouds

There are three great books about clouds. Little Cloud by Eric Carle can easily turn into a dance exploration, with students shifting shapes and levels; pair this with Sora and the Cloud by Felicia Hoshino. Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker is a picture book for K-5 students about the varieties of cloud formations.

C is for Color

My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss, with illustrations by Steven Johnson and Lou Fancher, is a fun exploration of colors and the emotions associated with each one. This book is a great example of a picture book that so easily "lends itself to movement."

C is for Circle

There are numerous poetry books about shapes. Check out When a Line Bends….A Shape Begins (by Rhonda Gowler Greene and illustrator James Kaczman) and also Shape Me a Rhyme (by Jane Yolen and photographer Jason Stemple). Use the poems specifically about circles to make a new warm up activity with your students.

C is for Carrot

Carrots and dance? Yes, indeed. Jan Peck wrote an amazing variation on the folktale The Giant Turnip. Sweet little Isabelle's dancing is what makes a giant carrot grow. This book is simply wonderful to read to students, to hear about dancing in a magical way. I also have a dance related to this story. Many years ago I made a giant carrot with fabric, about 5 feet high. My students' dancing makes this carrot "grow" as they circle around me and take turns dancing. Check out The Giant Carrot by Jan Peck and illustrator Barry Root.

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October 19, 2013