LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Children will learn:

1. To maintain a personal bubble of space while moving
2. To respond correctly to tambourine and musical cues
3. To demonstrate each animal movement after hearing its name
4. To imitate movements and sounds suggested in an action story told by the teacher

MUSIC:

"Happy Day" | Download Audio

Get Moving (2 Minutes)

What You Will Need

• 4 cones
• tambourine
• music - Happy Day

Jog to Music: Tell the children to start to jog as soon as they hear the music. When the music stops, instruct them to stop and listen while you show them new movements for the next activity.

Fly Away Birds: Children “fly” (jog) like birds with arms outstretched. Whenever the tambourine shakes, they squat with hands touching the floor (“nest”). On the verbal cue, “Fly away birds”, they stand and resume jogging. Include new verbal cues of “flap wings” (raise and lower arms), “glide” (arms out motionless), and “swoop” (dip a shoulder while changing directions or going around a corner) to add variety. Repeat all these cues several times in any order.

Jog forward

Jog forwards - a slow run, alternating feet, toes pointed straight ahead, small, light, springy steps, arms relaxed and bent at a 90 degree angle moving rhythmically with the feet.

Modifiers - fast, slow, big steps, little steps, straight path, crooked path, loud, soft, high knees

Benefits - legs  

Expansions: tag games, object searches, combination movements cued by tambourine taps

Can You? (7 Minutes)

Activity: Move Like the Animals

Tell children to move like the animals that you name (crab, frog, puppy, bunny, kangaroo, bird, inchworm). Encourage them to make the appropriate animal sounds that accompany each movement. Call the animals in any order. If you see children having a difficult time remembering a particular animal movement, or if they are performing it incorrectly, give a quick demonstration of the correct technique before moving on. 

Teacher: Introduce a new animal movement, an elephant, to the children. (From a standing position, bend over slightly from the waist with one arm outstretched reaching towards the floor like a trunk. Keep the head down, eyes looking at the floor. Walk around slowly swinging the trunk from side to side). 

As the children practice, create a storyline that has the elephant walking through the forest, reaching its trunk up to pull leaves off a tree to eat, and finding a water hole where it can both get a drink (using its trunk) and cool off (let trunk touch the ground as if filling it with water and then stand upright with trunk overhead as it sprays the water, etc.). Have the children practice using either arm as the trunk.

Elephant

From a standing position, bend over slightly from the waist with one arm outstretched, reaching toward the floor like a trunk. Keep the head down, eyes looking at the floor. Walk around slowly swinging the trunk from side to side.

Modifiers – big steps, big trunk swings, little steps, loud steps, soft steps, big and small trunk swings 

Benefits – torso, back

Expansions – switch arms for the trunk, reach up high with trunk to “eat leaves” off trees, reach low with trunk to suck up water and spray off body. Create a storyline that incorporates all these and other moves.

Swing

The pendulum-like movement of body extremities (arms/legs) that resembles a rope swinging back and forth or the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

Modifiers - fast, slow, jerky, smooth, short, long

Benefits - flexibility, rhythm

Expansions - swing to an established rhythmic pattern or to music, swing arms separately or together, use opposition of movement so one arm swings forwards as the other, swings back

Zoom In (7 Minutes)

Activity: Bible Connection

Teacher: Repeat the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Then ask the children to join you in "their garden" (call it by name). Have the children to move and perform as many animal movements and as many activities as possible in their garden. Encourage the children to use their imaginations to move creatively.

Wrap-Up (2 Minutes)

Ask the children to show you the new animal move they learned today (elephant) and then to demonstrate their favorite animal movement with accompanying sounds. Remind them that God made all the animals big and small, and that He made each of them too.

Conclude with the Celebration Huddle and Cheer.  “1,2,3, God is number one. 3,2,1, moving is fun!”