Shake, Shimmy, & Dance: 7/13

During the summer, we’ve switched to a weekly format again! I’m packing in between 60-120 people in a room and we are DANCING ourselves silly!

The Plan

Book
Tanka Tanka Skunk by Webb
This is a constant winner. The kids love clapping or stomping along to the rhythm of this book. And I love reading it out loud! This is also another book that can be shortened if you wind that you’re losing your audience or if your audience skews much younger than you anticipated. I did skip a few pages this week in the middle since the kids were primed and ready to dance!

Props
Parachute!

The Playlist

Hello & How Are You? — Old Town School of Folk Music
Hands Are for Clapping — Jim Gill
We Are the Dinosaurs — Laurie Berkner
Tap It Out — Fresh Beat Band
Jump Up! — Imagination Movers
The Shimmie Shake — The Wiggles
All You Need Is Love — Caspar Babypants
Shake Hands With Friends — Ella Jenkins

How It Went

This was my biggest “We Are the Dinosaurs” success ever! Every kid wound up marching behind me and playing along and it was so magical. It’s always a hit, but to get this kind of 100% participation in a drop-in, all-ages, it’s crazy awesome sauce! The parachute was a wonderful tool for today. The kids love it so very much and I had a caregiver who always sits down and doesn’t participate leap up when that chute came out. I even got compliments from our Technical Services department (right next to our big meeting room so they hear everything) on my choice of “All You Need Is Love” which I played while tossing foam hearts onto the parachute!

(For an example of the Powerpoint and handouts that I made for each Shake, Shimmy please visit the original post.)