Dancing a Book About Birds

Birds are so fun to dance about!  I mean, they’ve been done a few times before (Swan Lake, Firebird, Rockin’ Robin…), but my preschoolers love them, too!  The book Birds by Kevin Henkes has great illustrations and a lot of movement evoking words!  It’s a great book for dance class.  The illustrations are just awesome!  Here’s what I do when we read this book in class:

• Read the first six pages through “just their shapes”.  I love this picture of silhouetted bird shapes.

In my class, we always practice moving for eight counts, then freezing in a shape for eight counts.  Sometimes we’ll do freeze dance.  We also sometimes play the Body Parts Shape Game.  But, what I really want to try sometime is doing backlit shapes with a spotlight and a sheet.  I just need to get a powerful light to shine on the back of a dancer, while the dancer is standing behind a hanging sheet.  Then you could see their silhouettes and try to make the same shape as them.  I think that idea would be so cool!  I just need the right equipment…

• Read the next page through “or any size in between.”

For this page we do Big Land/Little Land, an idea I got from Anne Green Gilberts’ book Creative Dance for All Ages.  I set up cones down the middle of the room (you could also do small mats, dance spots, a tape line, etc.).  On one side of the line is “little land”.  When you dance on this side of the cones, show me how small you can be, like a tiny hummingbird.  How little can you move?  If you’d like to cross the cones do a one foot hop (or step of the cat, leap, tuck jump, etc.) to go to the other side.  On the other side of the cones is big land!  Over here, move as big as you can,like the big pink flamingo!  Remember, if you want to cross to the other side, do a one foot hop over the cones!

You could also go through different movements for the different birds (Flamingo: stand on one leg.  Hummingbird: small and quick movements.  Owl: swoop and dive.  Seagull: jump and peck).

• Read the next page through “and they didn’t move.”

Line up all your students in a line.  They can turn their heads any way they want, but once the pick a position, they must freeze.  Don’t move.  Don’t move.

• Read “I looked away for just a second…” (turn the page) “and they were gone.”

Ask all your students to “Disappear to the side of the room as fast as you can!”.  Practice this again by lining up and freezing, then leaping to the sides of the room, exploding to the sides, sliding to the sides, rolling, crawling, etc.

• Read the next page through “sky would look like.”

First of all, I just love love love this illustration!  Give everyone a ribbon “tail” to “paint the sky” with.  Go dancing.  Paint in circles, stripes, and dots.  Shake your ribbon.  Arc it over head.  Spin with your ribbon.  Throw and catch!  Make your room look like this picture!

• Read the following page through “look like this.  Or this.”

Everyone lay down onthe ground.  Close your eyes and imagine the clouds in the sky.  Have you ever thought a cloud looked like a dog?  Or a lollipop?  Or a tree?  What else have you seen a cloud look like?  Everyone make a shape with your body that is like a cloud shape you have seen.  Show shapes to the class and guess what they are.

• Read the next three pages through “SURPRISE!”

What could be a surprise in a dance?  What if we were moving slowly, then all of a sudden, did a huge jump?  That would be surprising.  Everyone move in slow motion.  You can do one surprise jump before the song ends.  Whenever you think is best, do a HUGE surprise jump!

Let’s try some different jumps.  Explore tuck jumps, straddle jumps, turning jumps, straight jumps, exploding jumps, etc. as a class.  Ask each student to create his or her own surprise jump.

This is a really fun book to make an end of class dance with.  We’ll usually do something like: Big movements, little movements, slow motion dance, surprise jump, sit on a line, then disappear (on my cue).  Sometimes we perform it for parents at the end of class, or save it for a recital!

Enjoy!