Stay At Home Story Time: Let's Dance

Participate:

Read the eBooks Farmyard Beat and How Do You Dance? by signing into Overdrive. If your card is inactive or you

don't have one yet, you can get temporary access by registering with your phone number. Public school students can also use their school library card number for access (Forgot or don't know? Visit this page​ for options to call, text, or email your question to a staff member.)

Dancing is a good way to keep your body healthy and your heart happy in trying times (and good times!)  These two books will let you try out some new moves: dance like farmyard animals, and see how other people like to dance either with someone else or all alone.  These books don't take long to read, so maybe when  you are done you can return them to the Overdrive collection for someone else to enjoy.

If those titles aren't available, try these: Mr. Putter and Tabby Dance the Dance, Groovy Joe Dance Party Countdown, or I Got the Rhythm.  Overdrive even has a Sesame Street dance video you can watch.  Cool!

Connect:

Dancing can be fun with good props.  Try making a ribbon stick or a ribbon ring. Why not put on a tutu or a crown while you're at it?  You could make a rain stick to provide some rhythm to your dancing.  World Book Activity Corner shows you how when you search for "rain stick."

Make a flip book of you or an animal friend doing some dance moves.  Scholastic has some great instructions here.

If you have empty tissue boxes at home, you can make animal feet to stomp around in.  Try these instructions from PBS Kids.  The video shows how to make dinosaur feet, but try making cow feet or feet for any of the other animals in Farmyard Beat. 

Let  your fingers do the dancing with an easy animal puppet.  Draw your favorite animal on some heavy paper, (maybe an empty cereal box?) color it, decorate it, cut a few holes in the bottom for your fingers and you are ready to show your moves.  You can find instructions from World Book's Activity Corner when you search for "puppets with legs."

Discover:

Need some music to groove to?  Don't forget your library card gives you access to Freegal which allows you to download and keep 5 songs per week.  There's lots of kids music available, too.  Try using the search term "kids dance party" and see what you get. (I really like the album called Songs You Remember As a Child!)

Traditional nursery rhymes are also a good way to get moving.  If you want to see some really lovely old books of nursery rhymes, try the Baldwin Library digital Collection from UF Libraries. The search "nursery rhymes" or even "dance" gives lots and lots of results including The Baby's Opera from 1878.

Lots of kids' songs have motions to them, whole body movements or finger motions.  The King County Library System in Seattle has a full collection of little videos to remind you of the words and movements to many of your favorites and maybe even some new ones.  Connect to their Tell Me a Story collection.