Dancing a Book About Beetles: Beetle Bop

Beetle Bop is definitely not a well known book, but I love it for the 4-7 age group!  It basically just goes through a list of descriptive phrases about beetles…but the words are great for dance!  Here are the details.

Read the story from the beginning.  Stop at:

• Buzzing beetles: Place faux flowers (I get mine at the dollar store) all over the floor.  Dancers “buzz” (skip, kick, turn, or free dance) from flower to flower, freezing in a shape next to one flower when the music stops.
• Steadily Drumming Beetles: March to the beat of the drum.  Make sure your feet match my drumming.  Try faster and slower tempos.  Then, experiment with hopping, jumping, clapping, and running to the beat.  Try new directions (forwards, backwards, sideways).
• Big Beetles: Everyone show me your favorite big jump!  If there is time, have students show their jump and let everyone try it.  These might include star jumps, split jumps, jump turn arounds, echappes, tuck jumps, and more.
• Small beetles: Let’s do some small movements.  In dance, we can do a small movement called an isolation.  Do a teacher-led isolation sequence, trying all different ways to move your head, shoulders, hips, knees, and toes.
• Noisily Gnawing: Can you dance noisily?  When I turn on the music, show me elephant running feet.  How loud can your feet be?  Now, show me ballet running feet that are quiet and soft.  Repeat with run, run, leaps.
• Round: Hold hands and make a circle.  Make a little circle.  Make a big circle.  Chasse in a circle.  Tip-toe in a circle.  Everyone make a round shape with your body in our circle.
• Fly-in-the-air: Using a trampoline if you have one, create a series of “obstacles” to practice jumping.  Jump over cones, leap across “lava”, practice star jumps or tuck jumps on the trampoline, jump turn around inside a hula hoop, etc.

• Whirling/Spiraling/Swirling: Practice chaine turns across the floor.  Then, everyone create your own one foot turn.  Where will your arms go?  Where will your legs go?  Is it fast or slow?  Perform your turn for a partner.  Then, teach it to them.
• Glowing Beetles: Every student receives a flashlight or glowstick.  Turn off the lights.  Do a free dance to “Fireflies” by Owl City.
• Beetles Flip: Using gymnastics mats, practice rolls on a wedge mat or handstands on a flat mat.
• Fly: Place cones throughout the room.  When the music turns on, go run, run, leaping over all the cones.  Watch out for your friends!
• Beetles Bop: Create a dance as a class from all the previous movements.  Maybe you’ll start in a circle and do chaines, then one by one, do your one foot turn away from the circle.  Run, run, leap over to the wall with your quiet ballerina feet and pick up your flashlight.  Then, the lights go out and you do your best beetle dancing until the music ends.  Divide into two groups and perform for each other.

I hope you enjoy Beetle Bop!  Let me know how it goes in the comments, below!