Dancing Words Blog

Category: Seasons

  • Dancing Towards Mother’s Day

    *This is a reposting of a blog post from 2011. 

    As we head towards Sunday, May 12th, there are two great books to share about a child and mother dancing:

    My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray

    Jonathan and His Mommy by Irene Smalls-Hector

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    My Mama Had a Dancing Heart is a sweet tale through the seasons of a girl dancing with her mother. The book is ideal to read in a preschool, kindergarten, or first grade classroom.

    Jonathan and His Mommy is a picture book with a young boy dancing with his mother. They explore different ways of moving around town – big steps, zig zag walks, and more. After reading this book, you can easily translate this story into a dance. It is ideal for preschool and kindergarten age students.

       

  • Our Seasons

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    Illustrator Grace Lin's artwork always catches my eye on a bookshelf, and I recently picked up the 2006 book Our Seasons by Grace Lin and Ranida T. McKneally.

    This book might be best used as inspiration for teachers who are wanting to explore the theme of seasons with students in 2nd-5th grades.

    The book is text heavy, with detailed descriptions to explain seasonal changes, such as why leaves change color, why you can see your breath, etc. But as a teacher, the book's format and various elements will definitely get ideas rolling for a dance project.

    Throughout the book, there are haiku poems, such as:

    Punching the blue sky,

    The wind shows off its power.

    Ki-ki almost flies.

    The overarching questions are beautiful, and can inspire dance ideas….

    1. What makes the wind?

    2. What is snow? 

    3. What makes a thunderstorm? 

    This book is a great example of one of the many ways to use a children's book within a dance class; sometimes a book can simply start ideas rolling for the dance teacher.

  • More Autumn Leaves

    I was browsing again at the library for inspring books about fall. Here are two to use in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classes.

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    Fall Leaves Fall! can be a springboard for improvisation or creating a dance with preschoolers and kindergarteners. You can read the book and use the actions described in the book – changing colors, falling, stomping, kicking, blowing, and catching. The book also describes the shapes and textures of leaves (pointy, smooth, small, large). These words can also be a starting point for movement explorations.

    When doing activities like this, I also like to use "fall music" such as Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," the jazz standard "Autumn Leaves," and the fall section of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

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    With kindergarten and first grade students, you can also explore the book Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins. This is a more "factual" book on leaves, with nice, clear photos of leaves with a white backdrop on the pages. I would suggest using the book as part of a warm up activity, exploring shape. I like how the book describes various kinds of leaves (gingko, hickory, sweet gum, etc). The book talks about the size of the various leaves and their particular shapes – like stars, like fans, curled, and pointed.

    Have fun this fall!

     

  • Poetry Series for Dance Classes: Autumnblings

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    I am a big fan of author/illustrator Douglas Florian. Many of his poetry books are great for dance classes.

    Today I want to highlight Autumnblings. The poems can be used in a variety of ways in PreK-2nd grade dance classes. Teachers can use the poems to create new warm ups. Multiple poems talk about the "colors of autumn" – so bring out a variety of scarves for dancing. Improvise and explore the action of falling through multiple poems and imagery in the book. Other poems are about baseball, pumpkins, the wind, weather, animals, and what we love and hate about fall. Autumnblings can be a great new way to explore the season in your classes. I find it to be a fresh take on the theme.

    What to Do with Autumn Leaves

    By Douglas Florian

     

    Kick them.

    Catch them.

    Pick them.

    Snatch them.

    Romp them.

    Stomp them.

    Hurl them.

    Heave them.

    If you want to,

    Even leave them.

     

     

  • Skip through the Seasons

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    Happy Spring! 

    Stella Blackstone and Maria Carluccio created a fun, colorful, movement-filled book called Skip through the Seasons. "Jump into January….Fly into February….Race into June…." You can use the text to inspire a dance with students in K-2 classrooms. 

    For seasonal inspiration in grades 3-5, I would recommend a book I previously blogged about, Seasons by Blexbolex.

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  • 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!