Dancing on Safari

I just couldn't wait until January to open our new Dance N Beats DVD.  My nephew is in town and he loves it when we do school (even though he is a big kindergartner now, the activities in the Mother Goose Time curriculum really appeals to him) so we did one of the "dance party" lessons in the Dance N Beats manual.

I love that the music this month includes African tribal chants; there is something about the drum beat that really gets to me and could almost make me start dancing spontaneously (as long as no one else was in the room).  We started with a couple dance songs while I gathered our materials for the academic activities (this was kind of spontaneous and it as nice that all of the materials could be easily and quickly gathered).

I had just (literally half an hour before) put an empty wrapping paper tube in the recycling prior to starting our lesson so I quickly retrieved it, cut it into various lengths and we did a quick activity of comparing the different lengths (which played nicely off our class from Monday) of the tubes and then practiced counting.  I had the kids roll a die and then place that many dots or stamps on their "giraffe neck".  For my nephew, I had him use two dice to make it a little harder.  Littlest just scribbled and stamped to her heart's content.  They kept at this for a good 7-10 minutes before moving on to the next dance.

While they danced to the giraffe song, I prepped the art activity.  I used white paper plates and drew lines on them.  I marked every other space with a B (for black) and had them paint stripes for the zebra shaker project in the manual.  It was a little difficult for Miss M to get the concept of skipping a space but I think she was starting to get it.  Littlest just made dots but she had fun doing it so we will just call hers a Dalmatian shaker.  We haven't actually finished these yet because they needed to dry before stapling them together with beans inside and we've been pretty busy but I'll try to update with a completed project photo when we get to it.

One more dance and it was time for Grass Letters.  By this time my girls had moved on to showing their grandparents their favorite Christmas gifts (Duplos, Magformers and a doll) but my nephew was still with me.  I cut up green paper into strips, then made up cards with upper case letters on them.  I started with all the "stick" letters and then added a few of the "curvy" letters for more difficulty.  He used the strips to form the letters on the cards and declared it to be "easy peasy" until he got to the letter C.  We puzzled it out, decided on the best configuration and then he decided it was time to get in on the toy testing so we were done.

I really love these little lessons in the Dance N Beats manual.  They are super simple and a great way to pass the time between nap and dinner that helps get the kids moving during this frigid winter weather and keeps them learning in a fun way.

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