Toddler/Preschool Dance Party

After reading about all the fun that Lindsey, Angie, Lisa and others have had doing dance parties for toddlers and preschoolers, I made a new year's resolution to do one of my own. I made good on that resolution recently (yay!). Now I want to share my playlist, along with a little helpful information I learned.

Clip art from openclipart.org

My playlist: 

• Body Talk on Kids in Motion by Greg and Steve: This is a great warm up song that gets kids moving various body parts.
• I Really Love to Dance on Buzz, Buzz by Laurie Berkner: I wanted to start out with a few songs that include clear cut actions. Plus I thought this one really set the tone for the program.
• The Monkey Dance on Yummy, Yummy by the Wiggles: Another fun song that the kids could easily follow along with. 
• We Will Stomp by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael: I've used this one in storytime a few times and thought it was a good idea to throw in something familiar.
  
• Jack in the Box from It's Toddler Time: Another familiar song from I've used in my storytimes.
• Happy by Pharell: I figured some kid friendly popular music was in order. We used scarves and moved into more freestyle dancing.
• Let it Go from Frozen: I had to include this based on sheer kid appeal. It also made a great follow up scarf song.
• All Around My Room on Lullabies by Laurie Berkner: A slow song seemed like a good way to begin to close out the program.
• Goodnight on Lullabies by Laurie Berkner: I figured it was appropriate to end this evening program with this bedtime themed song.

Logistics:

• I created a playlist on my iPhone. I used an auxiliary cable to play the music through the CD player we use for storytime. This worked well for our space and group size. We had about 30 people at the program (15 kids, at least 15 adults) and most seemed to be able to hear the music well.
  

What I learned: 

• A half hour is a pretty good length for this kind of program. It seemed to be about what the kids' attention spans (and my energy) could handle.
• It is important to encourage parental participation. I wish I would have done a little more of this at this program. For instance, I wish that at the end I had told the kids to "grab their grownups" and dance with them. 
• Including some kid friendly popular music is a must. My group went crazy over "Happy" and "Let it Go"!
• Use this as an opportunity to promote your library's collection. I made sure to remind the parents that all the music played at the program is from CDs available for checkout.

Overall, this was an very fun and easy program to plan. Plus I was able to count it as my workout for the day!

For more dance party related posts and suggestions see my Dance Party Pinterest Board.