Shake, Shimmy, & Dance: 7/26

It’s summer time again, which means eight weeks straight of Shake, Shimmy, & Dance! This was our last week for this summer!

The Plan

Book
Music Class Today! by David Weinstone
I thought that using this book as a closer to the Shake, Shimmy, & Dance session would be a fun idea to review all the things we had done together. The kids really seemed to enjoy the page spreads that showed activities we do in Shake, Shimmy like shaker eggs, singing songs, and even the clean-up page got “We do that!” cheers of excitement. The other reason that I like using this book is that it reassures caregivers and more hesitant children that it’s okay to do things at your own speed. And I really liked ending on “Come back another day” for the last week.

Props
Wrist Ribbons!

The Playlist

Hello & How Are You? — Old Town School of Folk Music
Get Your Move On — Mr. Jon & Friends
The Airplane Song — Laurie Berkner
Jump, Jump — Joanie Leeds
Your Own Dances Moves — The Learning Groove
Got the Wiggles — Michael Plunkett
All My Colors — Ralph Covert
Train Song — Bari Koral Family Rock Band
Shake Hands With Friends — Ella Jenkins

How It Went

I went with a lot of tried and true favorites for this last Shake, Shimmy of the summer season. The first three songs: “Get Your Move On”, “The Airplane Song”, and “Jump, Jump” all have instructions in the music which makes it easy to follow along and for grown-ups to participate. And I still believe that nothing beats doing “The Airplane Song” with seventy-six people.

“Your Own Dance Moves” was new to me and I had the families do a free dance to the song because the lyrics involved a lot of different movements. Some of the caregivers listened and helped their child to follow the song, but it also worked as a free dance.

Our props today were the wrist ribbons. “Got the Wiggles” has instructions and I have to say that it was not as successful as I wanted. While I really enjoy direction songs, I find that the Michael Plunkett CDs through Kimbo are not always loud enough to catch the attention of my large group, even with our sound system. During “All My Colors”, I asked kids to find a friend or a few friends to make a rainbow together with their ribbons. I enjoy promoting social skills in the program! Finally, we formed a train around the room, heading into station clean-up! As the kids reached the front table, I asked them to put their ribbons away. It worked like a charm!

An excellent wrap to the Shake, Shimmy summer season. I’ll be doing a stand-alone event in August outside for the first time! Look out for that write-up coming soon!

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