Dancing Children's Books

Finding the danceable ideas in children's literature is a simple formula. Look for danceable ideas in the text, illustrations, or both! Don't know where to begin? Choose one of your favorite picture books and follow the prompts below. You'll have your students dancing while reading books with you in no time!

Find Movement Words in the Text

Search for verbs, or "movement words" in the text. Point out or ask the students to identify the verbs within the book. Help them explore the action word by offering a movement prompt that connects the verb to an element of dance (Body, Energy, Space, Time or B.E.S.T). For example:

• Connect to body: "In this story the giraffe is reaching his neck. Can you reach your neck? Try reaching with another body part?" (Movement word: reach.)
• Connect to energy: "The monkeys were jumping on the bed. Can you jump with explosive energy? Now, jump like you're floating on clouds." (Movement word: jump.)
• Connect to space: "Today our character is acting silly! Silly. Can dance silly and stay close to the ground? What about up high? Can you find a silly walk going backwards? Can you find the smallest silly shape you know how to make?" (Movement word: silly.)
• Connect to time: "The book says the kites were blowing in the wind. Show me your body blowing in the wind. Can you float in the sky with fast, whipping winds? What if the wind calms down? Can you float slowly now that the wind is calmer? (Movement word: blow.)

Dance Elements within Illustrations

Look carefully for dance elements (body, energy, space, time) and find movement potential. Search for and invite students to create shapes with their bodies based on shapes found in illustrations. Find more ideas here. 

Find the suggested motion (e.g., pictures of a waterfall suggest moving from high to low, sinking, spreading, tumbling, churning, or falling). Notice the energy or force. 

Observe the lines in the illustrations: do they suggest floor patterns, levels, or other spatial particulars? 

Look for rhythmic patterns, and sense the tempo or the rhapsodic time suggestion of the illustration. 

Create, Rehearse, and Perform a Sequence

Encourage students to create, rehearse, and perform a sequence based on their movement explorations. Ensure dance sequence structures a clear beginning, middle, and end. One sequence that works well is "Shape-Movement-Shape!" 

Children can perform sequences while the book is being read by the teacher or another child.

Students can speak the words as they dance.

Sequences can be presented with or without music, independently from the book, and in a different order from the book. 

Encourage abstraction, repetition of movement, and rearranging the order of ideas. Books are the springboard for dance, not the dictator: dances do not have to follow the text sequence.

Dance the Entire Story

Invite students to dance their entire story to gain an understanding of the following:

• Key details
• Central message
• Settings
• Major events
• Characters
• The characters' adventures and experiences
• Narrative shape (beginning, middle, and end)
• Clima
• Conflict and resolution 

After dancing the entire story, assess what the students learned regarding the above objectives (key details, settings, major events, etc.).