Insect Themed Movement Ideas

My sister Kathleen shared the idea to make your own
egg shakers. What you will need for these fun themed instruments: an 18 pack of eggs ( I got mine for a $1) a hot glue gun, rice, and a egg carton. I painted the carton in rows to match the eggs so that the children can use there sorting skills when putting them away. To assemble the eggs fill one part of the egg with some rice, put a small bead of hot glue around the circumference of the egg, and quickly shut.

Doodlebugs is a fun marching song.

The Ugly Bug Ball you can either dance or march to.

Insideout A-Cappella's Eensi Weensi Spider this too can be a fun marching song. You can also use rhythm sticks (chop sticks, drum sticks) and do a rhythm drill mimicking the beat and the rain.

Charlot Diamond's Spider Web

you can have them spin around in circles or around the room. Or you can have the children sit in a circle and toss a ball of yarn to create a web.

With the Hug Bug song you can hide plastic insects in the gym prior to movement and start out with this song and have children search for the bugs, and when they hand them in they can even get a hug. On the last day of the week, or a nice day during the month you can take the children outside and have them hunt for real bugs.

With the Slimmy the Slug song they can slither around like slugs on the ground, or you could bring in blankets, if you didn't have a large group and have moms pull them around on their tummies while lying on the blanket.

For the Buzz, Buzz song you can make little bug antenna by using a generic plastic head band, pipe cleaners, and pom pom balls. Have the children where the antenna and fly, or buzz to different flowers in the room.

For the Balance Beam song, you can either bring in 1x4's or use the lines on the gym for the children to practice there balancing skills. To make it work with the theme, you can say they are bugs walking on a thin leaf or branch, or like it is a row in the garden and they don't want to step on the new plants.

Jump and Fly would be a fun song for pretending like you are a bug.

If you have any great songs or ideas that you have used or are going to use, please share.

Visial Aids for Fingerplays and Singing Time

Throughout the years we have seen many creative visual aids to help out during fingerplays and singing time. These visuals help to motivate kids to sit still and participate so that they can earn the privilege of picking the next fingerplay or song. I thought it would be fun to start sharing some of those ideas.

Here is what I did this month for Fingerplays. I have made a generic felt board with a piece of cardboard and felt. And then created images that represent the six fingerplays we are covering this month on one side of a rain drop. I then choose different children to come up and pick a rain drop to turn over so that we can start our next finger play.

There are many ways to go about this, if you have any weather visual aids and are willing to share your ideas and images we would all appreciate it. Please email me your ideas and images, and I will add them to the site. Thanks!

Here's an idea for singing time. Find your umbrella, tie some yarn to each tip, tape raindrops to the yarn. The names of the songs are on the raindrops. The kids loved this!