Tag: Dance

Blogger Jaime Eastman

Dance Party Joy: Life Lessons from Our Library

| Jaime Eastman|4 Comments
A staff member demonstrates a dance at the front of room of children.

“There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.” – Vicki Baum One of the most high-energy, over-the-top, exhausting-but-so-rewarding programs my library offers is Dance Party. Recently expanded to include anyone ages zero to five and their caregiver, this program features 30 minutes devoted to music and dancing. We share various songs broken up with literacy tips and a few books focused on music and movement. Sometimes, when we have a bigger crowd, we’ll do two back-to-back sessions to make sure everyone has a chance to participate. I’ve done more than one dance party in my time, and each one is uniquely rewarding. There’s something about seeing little faces light up when they hear their favorite song or the complete abandonment of a child dancing just because they can. Not only does each teach me about engaging with families, but also how to celebrate the little things in…

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Blogger Early Childhood Programs and Services committee

Sing Talk Read Write PLAY

| Early Childhood Programs and Services committee|Leave a comment

I’m lucky enough to co-present storytime at my location on Fridays. We’ve been examining our storytime routine and doing some deep thinking on how we are integrating the five early literacy practices of sing, talk, read, write, and play. We determined we needed to find a way to better incorporate PLAY into our storytime. But how would we do this and where to put it?  We like to incorporate a variety of inclusive movement activities. Therefore, we decided on a rotation of three activities – parade, follow the leader, and dance. We’ve placed this play time strategically between both books and sandwiched it between some breathwork to bring us back.  For logistics, we use a portable bluetooth speaker that is synced to my phone. When we do follow the leader and parade, I carry the speaker with me and start the line while my co presenter brings up the end…

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