Lesson Plans

Dancing a Book About Beetles: Beetle Bop

February 1, 2016 by Erika Leave a Comment

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!

Under the Sea

January 28, 2016 by Erika 1 Comment

I love to dance under the sea! The animal movements are so different and unique. Here’s a creative movement class based on under the sea animals!

I usually start with a warm-up and across the floor section. Usually I’ll include a movement rhyme as well. Then it’s time for our theme of the day: Under the Sea! (This could also be part of a larger unit in conjunction with The Rainbow Fish lesson plan).

Place pictures of under the sea animals throughout the room (Printable here).

Everyone loves a clown fish, thanks to Finding Nemo! Clown fish have a special adaptation to where they live. Clown fish can swim among the tentacles of a sea anemone without getting hurt. Other fish are poisoned by the sea anemone. This helps to keep clown fish safe from predators. This square on the floor is our sea anemone. All of you are clown fish and I am a much bigger fish. Only clown fish can go inside of the square. When the music starts, begin swimming (or galloping, bourre walks, turning, kick walks, skips, saute arabesque, etc.) around the square. If the music stops, run to the inside of the square where you are safe from the bigger fish!

Watch out for the scary shark! Sharks are in this song: Late Last Night. Dance the Late Last Night (details in this post) song and dance together.

OR, Play an adapted version of sharks and minnows. When I turn on the music, freeze in a balancing shape (or on one leg, in 1st position, etc.). I am the shark, I’ll dance around all the balancing shapes. When the music stops, the shark will figure out you are not statues, you’re fish! Run and touch the chair/wall/mirror/etc. before I tag you and eat you for lunch! Take turns being the shark and dancing through the frozen shapes!

For younger students: sea horses swim. How do horses on land move? They gallop! Let’s go galloping!

For older students: Sea horses can camouflage or blend in to adapt to its environment. Pick four students to be “sea horses.” The rest of the class will be the coral reef. While the sea horses close their eyes, demonstrate a frozen, balancing shape for the rest of the class. They will copy that shape and freeze. When I say go, sea horses turn around and run over to your classmates. You must copy their shape so that you blend in to your environment. If you don’t blend in before I, the predator, tag you, then you have to be a predator with me.

Turtles on land are pretty slow, but sea turtles are fast! Try walking (skipping, galloping, kicking, etc.) as slow as you can. Can you walk faster? Super speed?

OR, Do slowland and fastland. Set up a line down the middle of your classroom. On one side of the line move as slowly as you can. Kick slowly, balance slowly, roll slowly, etc. To cross the line, do a pas de chat (or leap, glissade, skip, or any other step you’re working on). On the other side of the line is fastland. Move as quickly as you can. Can you jump super speed? Roll and crawl quickly? Change sides whenever you’d like, as many times as you’d like! (This idea is from Anne Greene Gilbert’s Creative Dance for All Ages).

A sail fish loves to jump up out of the water and “fly” before diving back down. Let’s go “flying” over these cones/mats/spots. Practice leaping, star jumps, tuck jumps, etc. as you fly all around the room.

A puffer fish can blow up like a balloon when it tries to scare away other fish. Let’s play The Balloon Game!

An octopus has eight legs! How many legs do you have? Everyone grab a ribbon to give you an extra leg to dance with. Try drawing a circle with your ribbon. Can your ribbon fly behind you when you run? Can you toss and catch? Can you spin with your ribbon?

Jelly fish will sting you if you get too close! Let’s practice our saute arabesques (or whatever step you are working on), but when the music stops, freeze, so the jelly fish (the teacher) can swim by without stinging you!

Dolphins jump up out of the water and dive back in. Let’s practice dive rolls over a mat.

OR, instead of dive rolls, you can jump up tall, then dive down to touch the floor with your hands.

I hope you have fun with this under the sea lesson!!!

Also, grab these coloring pages for a quiet time activity at home or school.

And if you missed the link earlier, visual aid printables are here!

Snowmen at Night!

January 26, 2016 by Erika Leave a Comment

Snowmen at Nightby Caralyn Buehner is just plain fun! I read it to students aged 2-10 and they all love it. It rhymes, it sparks imagination, and it gives children a little bit of a fairy tale to believe in. Read on to see what I do in class with this book! (For a version of this lesson plan geared towards ages 6-12, click here).

What do you know about winter weather? It’s COLD! I want to see you all shiver. Shiver your right arm. Can you shiver just your left foot? Shiver your whole body. Can you shiver very very fast? low? heavy? light? etc.

Read aloud the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.

Stop at first page (before title page). What is the little boy doing? Rolling up a HUGE snowball to make a snowman. I bet that snow ball is very heavy. What can you roll? Head, eyes, shoulders, feet, entire body, etc. Show me some heavy rolling.
“They gather in a circle…”: Gather in a circle and go through your normal stretching routine. Pike stretch, butterfly stretch, etc.
“…for his turn in the snowman races”: I want to have a snowman race! Everybody go stick to the wall! (Or line up on a line, etc.) Let’s do our animal races. Pick a card and do that animal’s movement all the way to me! Give me a high five, and go back to the line! (For detailed instructions, visit this post).
“skating tricks on ice”: All of the snowmen are doing their own “trick” on the ice. What is your favorite trick to do? Can you jump and spin in the air? Can you kick really high? Can you do a cartwheel? Think of your best trick. Practice it 5 times while the music is on. Then, show your trick to a partner.
“world’s best snowball fight!” During a blizzard, it looks to me like the clouds are having a snowball fight! Everyone take a scarf (2 foot long piece of tulle), and freeze on a blue square (dance spot, in your place, etc.). When I turn on the music, can you make a blizzard with your scarves? Wave it this way and that way! Turn it in a circle. Spin the scarf around you. Toss and catch the scarf. Shake it. Run and let it fly behind you!
“snowmen’s biggest thrill!”: Roll or slide down a wedge mat if you have one. Or, you can roll on your belly across a few exercise balls. Or, go sliding on your bellies across the floor.
“getting sleepy…so one by one they go”: Everybody lay down and go to sleep. It’s time for the shoe dance! (Details for The shoe dance, aka Last Last Night, are here!)
Finish the story. Look at the final page of the book. What are those snowmen doing? They’re swinging on a bar! If you have a swingable bar, go swinging under the bars.

I hope you have fun with this book! Let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Let’s Dance: Winter Weather Patterns

January 26, 2016 by Erika Leave a Comment

It’s COOOOLD outside. This is how my trees were looking this past weekend. YUCK! But, fortunately for us, winter weather does have it’s upsides. It makes for great dance classes! This lesson is based on four winter weather patterns: freezing rain, snow, sleet, and rain. Plus, you get to read this amazing book:

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner is just plain fun! I read it to students aged 2-10 and they all love it. Read on for the rest of the lesson plan. (For the creative movement/preschool dance version of this lesson plan, click here).

Warm up: (2 minutes)

Experience/Identify: (10 minutes)

We are going to talk about four different kinds of winter weather: rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. Printable visuals here.

What is rain? Rain is water that comes down from clouds that get so full of water they can’t hold any more. Rain only happens when the temperature is higher than freezing — hotter than 32 degrees! Let’s try moving rain. How can you slosh and plop like rain? Can you swim through the rain? Can you slosh lightly? Can you slosh heavily? Quickly? Slowly?

freezing rain

Freezing rain is rain that comes out of the clouds as water, but freezes when it hits the ground, or the trees like in this picture. When I turn on the music, dance any way you’d like. Jump, turn, kick, roll, etc. When you hear the music get softer, start to slow down, and when the music stops, freeze. Freezing rain is a slow freeze.

Sleet is a little bit trickier. When it leaves the cloud, it starts as snow. Then, in the air it melts into rain. Do you remember how rain moves? (sloshing, plopping, swimming). But then, before it hits the ground, it freezes again, into little pellets of ice, like in the picture. If sleet hits you, it hurts, because it is hard ice, not soft snow. When I turn on the music, show me sharp movements, like sharp sleet.

Snow falls slower than rain. It is light and soft. In dance, we’d say it has sustained movement. It keeps moving, but slowly and steadily. Can you move in a sustained, steady way when the music starts? Can you do a sustained kick? Jump? Roll? When the music stops, show me a frozen balance.

Read aloud the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.

Stop at first page (before title page). What is the little boy doing? Rolling up a HUGE snowball to make a snowman. I bet that snow ball is very heavy. What can you roll? Head, eyes, shoulders, feet, entire body, etc. Show me some heavy rolling.
“…for his turn in the snowman races”:I want to have a snowman race! Let’s play a game. I will divide you into groups of five. Each group will get a set of winter weather cards! On the cards there are small pictures of sleet, snow, rain, and freezing rain. The first person will run to the cards, pick one up and do the movement for that weather pattern. When his teammates guess which weather pattern he is doing, he runs and sits down and the next student goes. Keep going until all the students have gone. Then return to the story.
“skating tricks on ice”: All of the snowmen are doing their own “trick” on the ice. What is your favorite trick to do? Can you jump and spin in the air? Can you kick really high? Can you do a cartwheel? Think of your best trick. Practice it 5 times while the music is on. Then, show your trick to a partner.
“world’s best snowball fight!” During a blizzard, it looks to me like the clouds are having a snowball fight! When I say turn on the music and say “SNOW!”, everyone stand up and create a blizzard. You may choose any of the movements we have done: heavy rolling, light sloshing (rain), slow freeze (freezing rain), sharp movements (sleet), or sustained balancing (snow).
Finish the story.

We just danced lots of winter weather patterns. Which one was your favorite? Is that your favorite in real life too?

Don’t forget to grab the printable visuals and flashcards!

The Gingerbread Man

January 22, 2016 by Erika Leave a Comment

I love to eat gingerbread cookies! Not just during the holidays, either. 🙂 My family has a cherished recipe for pepparkakar (Swedish gingerbread) that is to die for! However…that’s not what this post is about. Sorry.

I also love the story The Gingerbread Man! It is simple and fun, with a surprise twist at the end! Here’s a great, classic version that I like:

For this class, we will first warm-up, do some across the floor exercises or a movement rhyme, then settle in for a quick read of The Gingerbread Man.

After reading…

The gingerbread man was really fast! How fast can you move? How fast can you spin? Can you kick quickly? Skip quickly? How fast can you jump?

Who in the story was slow? Was the horse slow? The cow? How slow can you move? Can you roll slowly? Can you reach slowly?

Set up a line of cones down the middle of the room. On one side, there is fast land. On this side of the cones everyone must move as quickly as possible. They may cross over the cones at any time, but they must do a specified step (one foot hop, pas de chat, tuck jump, etc.) to go over. Once they cross the cones into the other side of the room, they are in slow land. Everything in slow land happens in slow motion! Turn on music and explore both sides of the room several times!

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