Shake, Shimmy, & Dance: 9/16

The Plan

Book
A Hop Is Up by Kristy Dempsey
I snatched this book off of the new books cart and immediately set it aside for today’s Shake, Shimmy, & Dance program. I love the opportunities for movement and interactivity that this book allows. The kids had a great time playing along with me and also really enjoyed the fact that they were the FIRST people to ever read this book!

Props
Activity Scarves!

The Playlist

Hello & How Are You? — Old Town School of Folk Music
Great Day — Play Date
Bouncing, Hopping, Jumping — Jim Gill
Rocketship Run — Laurie Berkner
Hello, Goodbye — Caspar Babypants
Suzuki Twist — The Learning Groove
Butterfly — Laura Doherty
Shake Hands With Friends — Ella Jenkins

How It Went

We did free dance for our first song “Great Day”, and then followed the instructions during “Bouncing, Hopping, Jumping”. During “Rocketship Run”, we pretended to be rocketships and the kids really enjoyed when their grown-ups lifted them up in the air. Then it was time for our scarf songs. We practiced waving hello and goodbye with our scarves during “Hello, Goodbye”. We twisted with our scarves during the “Suzuki Twist”. And then we made butterfly by pinching the middle of our scarves to make butterflies during “Butterfly”.

My grown-ups LOVED the Beatles cover by Caspar Babypants. Seriously, it was like Beatles fever all over again. “Butterfly” worked really well as a cool-down, lots of kids landed their butterflies on each other which was really sweet. And I think “Bouncing, Hopping, Jumping” will become a Jim Gill standard!

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