Dancing Words Blog

Flying Frogs and Walking Fish

I am a huge Steve Jenkins and Robin Page fan. Their books are whimsical, fact-filled, and many of their books naturally lend themselves to dance activities. Flying Frogs and Walking Fish, published in 2016, has an excellent format to launch a dance project with K-3 students, especially a large class. Narrate the book as the students dance.

The first page sets the stage for the book:

Animals walk, leap, climb, and swim. Some roll or turn flips. Others fly or glide, and a few are even jet-propelled. These creatures are found in many shapes and sizes......Have you ever seen....

Then, the book launches into an A B A B format. One page asks a question, and then the next gives 3 action words. (In classic Jenkins/Page style, every page has illustrations and smaller-type sentences describing the various animals.) To give you a feel for this, here are the first few pages....

Have you ever seen....

A Walking Octopus? 

Marching, strolling, tiptoeing....

A Leaping Lizard?

Jumping, pouncing, springing....

The book inspires solo and group sections, to appeal to different kinds of movers and performers. 46 different creatures are in the book, exploring the key actions of: walking, leaping, swimming, climbing, flying, rolling, and jetting. 

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Related posts:

The Letter M (featuring Move! by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page)

Book List: Animal Inspiration (Including 4 books by Jenkins and Page)

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Yellow Time - To Explore Colors, the Season of Fall, and Props

Yellow Time by Lauren Stringer is a picture book with numerous possibilities within a dance class for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classes. Check out this book if you are interested in exploring: colors, the season of fall, props, or turning a story into a group dance.

Colors

Yellow! The book is about a tree turning a beautiful yellow. My research has yet to find a book just on the color yellow, so this is a great opportunity to explore this primary color.

To see other books about colors and rainbows, click here.

The Season of Fall

"Fall/autumn" is always a rich theme for dance classes - to explore change and transformation, the actions of falling and floating, and props to represent leaves and various colors.

To see other books about the seasons, click here.

Props

The story of Yellow Time inspires me to give each student some yellow fabric (or scarves) to create some dancing leaves. Students LOVE props and the simple joy of something in their hand to toss, sway, circle, and zigzag. Head to your local fabric store to purchase a few yards of fabric. You can purchase tulle for everyone, or select a variety of fabrics in varying shades of yellow.

A Story into a Dance

Lauren Stringer's story easily leads to a full dance with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The students can be the crows in the trees. They can fly in and then be still (as dance students practice shapes and stillness). The crows can "hide" yellow pieces of fabric behind their backs, and then the leaves begin to dance. Use a music selection from Vivaldi's Four Seasons......

Crows love yellow time.

They fill still-leafy trees with their voices announcing it's coming to everyone. 

Just before yellow time, the air smells different. Like wet mud and dry grass with a sprinkle of sugar.

Yellow time comes before white time. Every time.

Everyone is ready. The trees can't hold on forever.

The sky billows gray with clouds, and then it begins.....Whoosh! Whoosh! WHOOSH!

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Lauren Stringer has also illustrated other books mentioned on this blog:

Deer Dancer

When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky

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Sets of Books, with Lots of Options

As dance educators, we have our favorite themes for classes and projects - the seasons, Halloween, locomotor steps, prepositions, and animals (to name a few). This week I was revisiting my bookshelf and thinking about some prolific children's authors, and how these sets of books would be great to explore in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classes. The commonalities between the books will be fun to explore with the kids and a playful link from week to week.

The excellent duo of author Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrator Sylvia Long now have SIX titles in their series. Titles include A Butterfly is Patient and An Egg is Quiet. The complete list is:

A Nest is Noisy

An Egg is Quiet

A Seed is Sleepy

A Rock is Lively

A Butterfly is Patient

A Beetle is Shy

Each book has a similar feel in terms of illustrations and the structure of each page; each page has one large sentence in cursive and then more scientific details in smaller print on each page.

The cursive sentences are written in such a way to inspire movement for each new idea. The books can be used for structured improvisation with the students or as a basic structure to create a dance.

Some text from A Butterfly is Patient:

A butterfly is patient.

A butterfly is creative.

A butterfly is helpful.

A butterfly is protective.

A butterfly is poisonous.

A butterfly is spectacular!

The images and descriptions on each page will provide further inspiration for dancers to express the ideas. See the images, hear the descriptions, and explore in our own bodies.....

In a similar way, author Kate Messner and illustrator Christopher Silas Neal now have 3 titles to their names - which explore up and down and above and below in a garden, a pond, and in snow. The titles are:

Over and Under in the Snow

Over and Under the Pond

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt

Prepositions - and relationality - are favorite concepts within creative dance. I love these books to explore high/low, up/down, and over/under. The books explore animals, birds, bugs, and weather. From Over and Under the Pond:

Over the pond, the wind gives us a push and stirs the light-dappled leaves on shore. There on a branch, a new goldfinch teeters, finally ready to fly.

Under the pond, tadpoles are changing, learning to hop. They're losing tails, growing legs, growing up.

Over the pond, there at the shore, tall and silent and still, a great blue heron stares down into the deep. It tenses....takes one long-legged step.....

and strikes! It catches a wiggling, quicksilver minnow from where it was hiding, under the pond.

 

Flowers are Calling

Attention seasoned dance teaching artists! Flowers are Calling, by Rita Gray and illustrator Kenard Pak, offers some magical inspiration --- leading towards a group dance with many "parts" for your whole class. Preschoolers, kindergarteners, and first graders will love the many roles to play as animals, insects, and beautiful flowers. 

The recurring structure of the book is that a "flower is calling" to an animal. The animal emerges - such as a bear, frog, porcupine, or blue jay - but then something else is really interested in the flower, such as a honeybee. 

Flowers are calling a little black bear

No, not a bear! He doesn't care.

They're calling a butterfly 

to dip from the air.

Flowers are calling a wet green frog.

No, not a frog! She likes her soggy bogy.

They're calling a bumblebee

to look near their log.

Ten different animals/birds appear in the story as well as 9 different bugs and birds that go to the flowers. The book also highlights a variety of flowers in different shapes and sizes.

Begin your exploration by reading the whole book to the group. Then, try out different body shapes/poses inspired by the numerous flower illustrations.

Next, you can choreograph the dance with the students having one or more roles in the dance as an animal, insect, or flower. 

Possible extensions to the lesson include:

• A Garden of Ordinary Miracles by Robert R. Zakanitch (to explore more flowers and their shapes)
• Little Green by Keith Baker (to explore hummingbirds and their pathways/actions)

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The Dance of the Raindrops

One of my favorite themes for creative dance projects - spanning preschool through 6th grade - is the subject of water. I love the actions of water, the states of water, and the water cycle. Watersong by Tim McCanna and illustrator Richard Smythe is a great new addition to my collection, ideal to use with preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students.

This picture book is filled with playful words to describe the sounds, speed, and qualities of water. 

Drip drop plip plop

pitter patter pat. 

Twinkle sprinkle splatter splutter

spitter spatter splat.

The text can lead to an improvisational activity or a choreographic project with the group. Explore tempo, level, and quality changes. Use the words and your narration of the story to support the movement phrasing and slow, medium, and fast tempos. Water can move in so many different and playful ways.

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Jonathan and His Mommy

Several times a year, I have the wonderful opportunity to write for another blog, Book to Boogie. This month, I wrote about the picture book Jonathan and His Mommy. If you are looking for a book about parent/child relationships, pathways, and locomotor steps, check it out. Read more here. 

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Animal Action: Moon Forest by Patricia MacCarthy

Moon Forest was a great find recently at the public library. For teaching artists working with 2nd-5th graders - and larger sized classes of 10 or more - this story has lots of action and lots of "roles."

A fox is traveling through a forest looking for food. Many animals interact and respond to the fox. The story so naturally lends itself to a dance, especially in a school setting with 20-35 children in a class. Develop the dance, and you can read the story aloud on stage. Your words and pacing can naturally cue the students.

The story begins with:

The great white eye of the moon looks into the forest. What can it see?

A flitter of bats.

A twist of briars.

A dusting of moths.

A coil of ferns.

A red fox running through a blue forest.....

An owl gliding between shadows.

A warm breeze ruffling fur; a hunter's nose

sniffing the sweet night air, 

something stirring,

a rat scuttling.

Teaching artists can easily explore this book for several weeks in class, taking time to try out the many actions in the book. The story lends itself to exploring level changes, tempo, and a wide variety of locomotor and axial movements.

Patricia MacCarthy's magical illustrations evoke traveling, swirling, dodging, and hiding within the forest. 

Music ideas include songs from the album Chamber Music, a collaboration with a cellist and kora player (Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal). Try out "Halinkata Djoubé."

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Animal Inspiration: Group Dances

In recent years not only 1 - but actually 3 - picture books have come out with the theme of collective nouns to describe groups of animals. What are these words and phrases? Examples include:

• A leap of leopards
• A parcel of penguins
• A knot of frogs

For students in grades 2-5, these books can be curious springboards for a group project. Divide the students into small groups of 3-6 students. Have them each select an animal and read up in that book about that animal. 

Then, each group can create a section of the dance for their animal. For example,

1. Have the students choreograph a way to enter into the space
2. Students then freeze in a group shape/tableaux
3. Then, based on their reading, have the students create a dance with 4-8 actions of their animal (example - reaching, swinging, grabbing, rolling, etc). Based on the age of your students, you can further explore level changes, tempo, direction, and pathway.
4. Have the students choreograph a way to exit as well

The three books of collective nouns are:

A Tower of Giraffes: Animals in Groups by Anna Wright

Have You Ever Seen a Smack of Jellyfish? An Alphabet Book by Sarah Asper-Smith

A Zeal of Zebras by Woop Studios

Image from A Zeal of Zebras

Music ideas include:

"Cirrus" by Bonobo

"Thum Nyatiti" by Ayub Ogada

"Rumble in the Jungle" by Max Roach

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Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova

   

The book cover alone will draw you into this new picture book about Anna Pavlova, considered one of the greatest ballerinas of all time.

Sweet in tone and pictures, this book will be accessible and intriguing for dancers of all ages - from as early as age 4 up to age 11. Anna grew up in Russia with a single mother. Finally at age 10, she was accepted into the Imperial Ballet School. She rose to fame for her performance as well as belief that "ballet can be for everyone." 

To add to the reading experience, find photos of Anna Pavlova online via Google Images or Pinterest. She was stunning, and these vintage photos still convey her elegance. 

Purchase Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova by Laurel Snyder and Julie Morstad here or check it out at your local library.

Magic and Whimsy Series: Touch the Brightest Star

 

Are you looking for new inspiration for a final dance/presentation in the coming weeks? If you teach students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade - check out Christie Matheson's latest book Touch the Brightest Star. 

Magic happens every night. It happens everywhere - from sunset to sunrise. It happens even when your eyes are closed. 

So begins the book. 

With each page turn, you will explore the actions of fireflies, wind, owls, and stars. The words are easy inspiration for movement.

With your students, you can narrate the dance, directly reading the text. Develop movement phrases or an improvisational structure for the dance. 

An idea for music is "Oscarine" by kora player Ballaké Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal.

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