Toddler/Preschool Dance Party 2016

We are slowly but surely getting started with summer reading at my library and during our current storytime break I thought another dance party for toddlers and preschoolers would make a great evening program. It is fun, easy to plan and the active nature of it fits the "On your mark, Get set, Read!" theme.

For those who have not tried doing this kind of program yet, I highly recommend it. If you need a playlist to get you started, here are the songs I used this time. For more ideas you can also see my previous dance party post or Pinterest board.

• Body Talk on Kids in Motion by Greg and Steve: One of the few songs I reused from my previous dance party. It is just such a good warm up song. As a bonus it introduces many great vocabulary words for body parts.
• Body Rock on Kids in Motion by Greg and Steve: This is another favorite song with a variety of directed motions. It is also a little faster tempo so it seems to get the kids excited.
  
• I Really Love to Dance on Buzz, Buzz by Laurie Berkner: My other repeat song from my previous dance party. It is a fun song that fits into a dance party perfectly.
• Let's Go Swimming on Top of the Tots by the Wiggles: I liked the idea of including a few summer related songs to get into the spirit of the season. 
• Wipe Out by the Surfaris: Another summer themed addition. I had the kids pretend to surf then yelled "Wipe Out" throughout the song so they could pretend to fall down.
• Rockin Robin on Songs for Wiggleworms: We pretended to be birds and flew around the room to this classic. 
• Twist and Shout on Songs for Wiggleworms: This song was chosen as one of my designated shaker songs. I also included it because I wanted another song the parents would recognize.
• I know a chicken on Whaddya Think of That? by Laurie Berkner: Another terrific shaker song. My kids are familiar with it from storytime, so that was another definite plus.
• Wimoweh (the Lion Sleeps Tonight) on Whaddya Think of That by Laurie Berkner: As an ending song this worked wonderfully. We sat on the floor and pretended to sleep when the lion did. When it got to the chorus of "Wimoweh" we waved scarves around.

Logistics:

• Once again I made a playlist on my iPhone and connected it to my CD player with an auxiliary cable. I would definitely recommend this as a method if your group is small enough. Mine was about 30 people and it worked well.

What I learned:

• Getting parents to participate can be hard. I made several requests for grownups to get up and dance at the beginning of the program but still didn't get the participation I hoped.
• Participation may look different for toddlers vs. preschoolers. This is totally normal developmentally. Both are benefiting from participating and having fun.
• Digital music collections such as Freegal are a good resource to recommend to parents at a dance party. They often contain some great kids music. 

I hope these ideas have help if you are planning a dance party, or just provide some good song suggestions for the kids in your life. If you have any questions you can always comment here or email me at marrak at libcoop.net. Thanks for reading!

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.