Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Well, Mr. Nietzsche I'll take your advice. I'm sure Nietzsche wasn't talking precisely about the kind of dancing we do in our classroom. We do all the standard Pre-K dances like the Hokey Pokey, Chicken Dance, The Freeze and of course, The Super Fun Show. We dance together, all following along, pretty much doing the same moves. Great exercise, big fun, wonderful opportunities for gross motor movement. That is not all, oh no, that is not all. We do the Electric Slide, the Cha-Cha Slide, and the Cupid Shuffle. But with the exception of a few independent moves, these dances are really someone else's moves. My friends and I LOVE to dance! We are independent thinkers and as much as we like all those other moves, we like our own, too.
Monday morning, as I picked up my friends from the before care room, one of my students was singing the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" and dancing along. By the time we made it to our room, several of the kids were singing and dancing down the hall, too. (Usually the hall is a quiet place, but during this arrival time it is buzzing with activity, so I didn't see the harm.) I noticed several parents of kids from other classes were smiling as they passed.
While dancing in the halls is not commonplace for us, dancing to popular music is. We dance to anything and everything that moves us. We have a classroom full of Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers wannabes. When I put either one of those on, the friends run to grab a cylinder block microphone and start dancing. Although I am a lover of all types of music, I am definitely a rocker at heart. During Halloween, we rocked to "Purple People Eater" and "Thriller". The Tractors' "Santa Claus is Comin' On A Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train" is STILL getting requests (almost daily)!!
I have a ton of music at home and on my laptop computer. So when my friend started with the Black Eyed Peas, I had to put it on! We have had the best time dancing ----since Monday morning, we've danced to that song at least 6 or 7 times. Today they decided that from now on, we should dance around as we put our nap mats away and go to our tables---if that is what inspires them, we'll go for it. It made our transition a bit noisier, but we all enjoyed it so much more than our regular routine! Friends, let's DANCE!
I don't dance enough. It's sad, but I really don't. I have a bunch of friends who dance 2-3 times a week.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we do some of the standard preschool dances in class as well, but we haven't taken advantage of recorded music to really rock out! You make me realize what a missed opportunity that is. Thanks.
YES! Dance! I love to dance but let me tell you - I do it without any of the "groove". But my preschoolers don't seem to care:)
ReplyDeleteI also direct a large musical every year and boy do we dance...
I have some little ones that can shake their 'tooshie' with the best of them. This year we put in a music center/dance stage. In the house area there was originally a closet with sliding doors. We took the doors off and had put in shelves. This year we took out the shelves and built a little platform (stage). We painted the stage black, added glitter and clear coated it. We put up lights to go with the season (Purple lights @ Halloween, Christmas lights, Heart lights @ Valentines, et.c). We also put in a disco ball and black light. We put on a KIDS Bop CD, get out the musical instruments and dress up clothes and the kids have a ball. (Linda Horner)
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