Dancing Words Blog

Category: PreK-5 Dance Books

  • New Book: Stars by Mary Lyn Ray and Marla Frazee

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    I just received my pre-ordered copy from Amazon.com today. I am excited. I love the artwork of Marla Frazee, and if you do not already own her book All the World, please check it out. I think I have given it as a gift to nearly 10 babies and children in the last year or two. 

    I am always on the look out for books about wishes, hopes, dreams, peace, and beauty. Can the poetic language and whimsical and magical images inspire a dance project? 

    Stars  has great potential to use with children in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade. The text talks about stars in a variety of ways, and I love to image of "keeping a star in your pocket." I see the use of props for a dance – stars in a variety of sizes including star shaped pillows. I see costumes with stars. I imagine a special use of focus in the choreography – near, far, up, and down. 

    As the text on the book jacket shares, "Stars are everywhere. Not just in the sky. Look……"

  • Guest Post: The Runaway Bunny

    Today's post is by my friend and colleague Amanda Whitehead, who teaches at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA:

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    I use Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny in ballet class for improvisation time at the end of class.  Though Bunny may not be an obvious first choice for movement, the transformational imagery in it is irresistably rich.  The little bunny who wishes to run away becomes a fish, then a rock, a bird, a flower, a sailboat, and a trapeze artist.  Students dancing the story can explore slippery, solid, and ethereal textures; still, wavy, and swinging motions; and quick, slow, heavy, and light dynamics, to name just a few possibilities.  A different music selection for each transformation really brings out the changes; for example, my Runaway Bunny is scored with Britten, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Dvorak, Copland, and others.

    There are two added bonuses to using this book:  First, it is already familiar to many children, so adding movement and music just lets them enjoy a favorite story on new levels.  They discover how something they already know can offer new, unexpected levels of experience.  Secondly, the story acts out an important early childhood developmental milestone: separation from parents.  Dance class can be right up there with preschool as a first activity undertaken without parents.  So the theme of testing limits, whether by swimming, flying, climbing, or swinging, will be something the students easily engage with.

    Now that I think about it, there is a third added bonus to The Runaway Bunny: it will be an old favorite to teachers, who probably first read it when they were children!  And the more invested teachers are in the material we present, the more invested our students will become.  I wish you great fun transforming along with the children you teach.

  • Guest Post: Dance in Third Grade

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    This post was written by Carol Montgomery, a third grade teacher at The Hamlin School in San Francisco. The Hamlin School is an all-girls K-8 independent school.

    Last spring, I enlisted Jill Randall’s help with the development of a culminating dance project for my girls who were learning about various African nations through novels, non-fiction picture books and movies.  Jill choreographed and taught an amazing piece inspired by Toumani Diabate’s song "Djelika."  She inspired the girls to take risks on the dance floor and react naturally to the power of rhythm and movement.  The class became the dancers we read about in books like African and Asian Dance by Andrew Solway.  They learned the importance of dance as a cultural expression, and how to “converse with the music” in the dance studio.
     
    I love African and Asian Dance because it explains the diversity and significance of various instruments, styles and techniques native to Asian and African dance traditions, while comparing those disciplines to more contemporary dance expressions.  The book has a glossary and recommended websites to extend your studies, a fabulous resource for educators wanting to explore the cultures of Asia and Africa for children through religion, folk tales, and storytelling.  
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    Drumbeat in our Feet by Patricia A. Keeler and Julio T. Leitao is a fantastic picture book.  It’s an inspirational text in that it sends a clear message that everyone can be a part of the celebration of dance.  Appropriately, the book opens with the African Proverb, “If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing.”  The book breaks down technical vocabulary in a kid friendly way and employs clever uses of metaphors and similes to make it a whimsical read! My kids and I loved this book.
     
    Jill’s teachings and recommendations exposed me to a new genre of books for children to explore culture through art and movement.  The experience inspired my girls to take risks and celebrate the diversity in dance among cultures. The unique fusion of literature and experiential teaching helped to enrich my students and the overall 3rd grade social studies curriculum, which centers on world cultures and world geography.  

  • Thinking Ahead to Halloween

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    I wanted to make a post – nice and early – so that teachers can purchase books or grab them at the library before they are scooped up in Halloween excitement.

    Dem Bones by Bob Barner is a classic spiritual song. The hip bone connected to the….. I love reading this to elementary students and then creating a warm up with the words. It is a great way to explore skeletons, bones, and parts of the body. 

    Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by George Levenson and Shmuel Thaler is a clear picture book with many photos about the cycle of a pumpkin. I have created many a dance for kindergarteners with this book as inspiration. I love talking about twisty tendrils and growing vines.

     

  • Back-To-School List #2: K-5

    I hope that this list will inspire and help librarians and K-5 teachers to build a great dance book collection this school year. Here are my "top 20" books. Out of print books can easily be found used on amazon.com at reasonable prices.

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    20 Great Books for K-5 Students

    1. On Your Toes: A Ballet ABC - Rachel Isadora

    2. A Young Dancer: The Life of an Ailey Student - Valerie Gladstone and Jose Ivey

    3. Beautiful Ballerina - Marilyn Nelson and Susan Kuklin

    4. Let's Dance - George Ancona 

    5. Alvin Ailey - Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney

    6. Dance - Bill T. Jones and Susan Kuklin

    7. Modern Dance - Andrew Solway

    8. Dictionary of Dance - Liz Murphy

    9. Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring - Jan Greenberg and Susan Jordan

    10. Jose! Born to Dance: The Story of Jose Limon – Susanna Reich and Raul Colon

    11. Dancing Wheels – Patricia McMahon and John Godt

    12. Dance! – Elisha Cooper

    13. Alphabet of Dance – Barbara Heit Schwaeber and Damian Ward

    14. Ole Flamenco – George Ancona

    15. Brothers of the Knight – Debbie Allen and Kadir Nelson

    16. Drumbeat in Our Feet – Patricia A. Keeler 

    17. I am a Dancer – Pat Lowery Collins

    18. Ballerina Dreams – Lauren Thompson and James Estrin

    19. Isadora Dances – Rachel Isadora

    20. Lion Dancer: Ernie Wan's Chinese New Year - Kate Waters, Madeline Slovenz-Low, and Martha Cooper

  • New Book on the Seasons

    I just received my Amazon package with the book Seasons by Blexbolex. I have read about this book in the Horn Book Guide and LMNOP Magazine. 

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    The book is a fresh take on the theme of seasons. The block print-esque images evoke feelings of each season. The words are actions as well as "things" (nouns). The book is not a narrative, but many words poetically organized, one word per page. 

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    My teaching brain already goes to multiple ideas with this book for dance classes. I will most likely use it with students in 1st grade through possibly 4th. The text and images can be springboards to build movement phrases, or reading the book can inspire your students to create their own lists of verbs and nouns about spring, summer, winter, and fall. 

    Check it out!

  • 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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  • 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.