Movement Play

If you or any of your children love to move, try playing around with these problems—best done with a partner or in a small group. These activities are also fun to videotape and playback!

WARM-UP ACTIVITIES:

1. Gently move around your head, arms, waist and legs. Reach up high and reach down low. Run in place. Jump softly to the left and to the right.
2. Bend from the waist and pretend you are a puppet whose strings are slowly being pulled up. First, only the string in the middle of your back pulls you up. Second, strings on your elbows pull up. Third, strings on your wrist. Fourth, a string pulls up your head. Finally, ten strings on your fingers pull you up until you are on your toes. Pretend someone cuts the strings and you bounce down and around.
3. Stay on your feet but make yourself very small. Pretend you are a balloon. Slowly “inflate” as you make a blowing noise. When you get as big as you can, “float” a few seconds and feel very light. Then pretend someone lets go of the end of the balloon and you scoot around backward as all the air escapes.
4. Stand tall and stiff, as if a candle. Pretend to light the wick. Start to melt slowly: head, shoulders, torso, legs, etc. until you are a puddle of wax on the floor.

OBJECT PANTOMIMES:

1. Individually pantomime using an everyday object—such as a hairbrush. This should take just a few seconds for each person to demonstrate their object.
2. Pretend the object (the same object) has shrunk to a 5 times smaller size. (E.g., this would make the hairbrush about 2” long.) Repeat the same pantomime with this much smaller object.
3. Pretend the object has grown to 5 times larger than normal. (E.g., this would make the hairbrush about 4 feet long.) Repeat the same pantomime with this much larger object.
4. Pretend each object has grown so large that all of you have to manage it together. (E.g. if I were in a group of 4, the other three would have to handle a 12 foot hairbrush to brush my hair.)

LETTER MOVEMENTS:

These can be done with any number of children. They just need to line up and take turns.

1. Use your hands to make different alphabet letters. (Or learn and practice the American Sign Language letters.)
2. Use your individual bodies to create different letters.
3. Work in small groups to create different letters.
4. Use painter’s tape to make a huge letter on the floor. (Or use sidewalk chalk to draw one outside.)
5. “Walk” the lines of the letter.
6. Find new ways to go around the lines of the letter. Ideas: hopping, jumping, leaping, sliding, galloping, tiptoeing, walking backward, dancing, moving sideways, etc.