Harold and the Purple Crayon (Purple Crayon Books)
After our warm-up, across the floor, movement rhymes, and stretching, we’ll move to the theme of class. Today’s theme is: Harold and the Purple Crayon (Purple Crayon Books)
Read Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. When I get to each of the below sections in the book, we stop and do the activity. Then we come back to the book.
- Long straight path: do a dance on a long straight path. (Run, run, jump! Run, run leap!) Sometimes, we’ll also make up our own dance along a masking tape line on the floor.
- Turned a corner shortcut: On a tape square made on the floor (about 6 feet on each side), each child will do “run, run, run, jump, turn around, reach up high and touch the ground” on one side. Then, turn the corner to the next side and “kick your feet, clap to the beat, run, run, run, run giant leap”.
- Backed away (from dragon): Shake away from the book. Run backwards. Skip backwards. Shake backwards.
- From the top of the mountain: Climb up a wedge mat and jump off. Practice straddle jumps and tuck jumps.
- Falling in thin air: Collapse. Combination: 4x march, 3x turn, 2x jump, collapse
- Landing the balloon: Blow up a balloon and watch it fly down, down, down. Turn on music and do a balloon falling dance. Everyone start up high and gradually move lower and lower.
- He got in bed and drew up the covers: Dance to Late Last Night by Joe Scruggs.
Choreograph and Share (5 minutes)
Harold used his crayon to draw his own adventure. Today we’re going to use our squiggles (ribbons) to draw our own adventure. Let’s write the alphabet with our squiggles. Sing the ABCs song with me!
Can you paint a picture with your squiggle? Can you write your name? Or draw a flower? Maybe you can make a dinosaur! How can you dance with your feet while you draw your picture in the air?
Closure (2 minutes)
Share your squiggle dance with a partner, or with the class, as time allows.
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