Creative Movement & Dance Activities

Today we have two movement activities for you to choose from for our “Movement Monday”. Both activities involve animal movements. The first activity will appeal more to younger children, but older children could change the story, and movements, to appeal to their age group. The second activity is more general, and is for any age.

Activity 1:

Read the story below, the “Day of a Squirrel” (Adapted from: Active Healthy Kids Canada, activ8, Grades 1–3, 2002 and Daily Physical Activity in Schools).

  1. Read the story below out loud, or have your child follow along with you as you read.
  2. Emphasize the action words that are in bold and pause after each one.
  3. At the appropriate points in the story, have your child move in the way that the story says.
  4. Go over movements in the story beforehand so your child knows what to do:
    • Jump – either up in the air, forward, backward or side to side
    • Scamper – move quickly in any direction
    • Hop – on one foot or two
    • Leap – take a giant step
    • Stretch – reach your arms overhead
    • Wave hello – wave your arms
    • Walk – simply walk

There once was a squirrel who loved to jump. This squirrel’s name was Spring. Spring did not scamper (move quickly) most of the time like regular squirrels, but instead hopped and jumped and leaped everywhere she went. She woke up early every morning, stretched her arms, waved hello to the sun then scampered (moved quickly) down her tree to begin her day. She rarely went straight down the tree. She liked to jump up from branch to branch first. She loved it when the branch would jump back at her and she would have to try to keep her balance before leaping to the next branch.

The first stop in Spring’s day was almost always at the park. She would find the park benches and jump up onto the seats. She would walk carefully along the benches then jump to the side, making a safe landing. She would look under the benches to see if she could find any food or treats to eat.

Another one of Spring’s favourite things to do was to scamper (move quickly) along the path in the park and jump forward over every crack in the sidewalk. She liked to pretend that she was a super flying squirrel, jumping up as high as she could over every line she saw. Spring’s day went on like that with every activity involving jumping. She hopped over small things like leaves, she jumped side to side over big things like rocks, she especially loved to jump up high over things that were in a row and jumping side to side from one rock to another rock in the river. Spring’s day usually ended with . . .

Have your child make up the way Spring ended the day and move around in that way.

Variation:

Instead of jumping and hopping, change the movements to something else (e.g. bending, jogging on the spot). Make up your own story and movements.

Activity 2:

This activity is open-ended, with a lot of choice, depending on how active you want to be today.

  1. Pick as many different animal movements as you like. Here are some suggestions:
    • Frog (frog jump)
    • Bunny (hopping on one or two feet)
    • Crab (front or back crab walk)
    • Turtle (walk slowly)
    • Cheetah (run fast)
    • Horse (gallop or skip)
    • Bear (walk with both hands and feet on the ground)

Other animal movement descriptions can be found at ANIMAL WALKS ANIMAL WALKS (OPHEA)

2. Decide on the order of your movements for the distance (and/or time) you picked, and go! Have someone call out the animal (Example: “Bunny” and begin hopping, then “cheetah” and start running, then “crab” and crab walk frontward, then finish with “turtle” walking slowly.)

**If you want to see a short example of this click on this link https://youtu.be/hmQUSbtB4lU