A Dancing Good Storytime

Today my storytime theme was dancing. Since my first story, Yoshi's Feast, featured Japanese dance, I had the kids decorate paper fans for a craft. I brought my kimono and Japanese fan to do the dance in the story. The kids enjoyed the craft, perhaps got a little to in to the dancing, but I kept my audience entertained which is the important part.

In Yoshi's Feast, Yoshi's neighbor says he will charge him money for smelling his restaurant's food. Yoshi says if he is charged for the smell, he'll pay with the sound of his money (I brought a money box to shake). Eventually, Yoshi decides to help his neighbor out by doing a fabulous dance to attract customers to the restaurant.

It would be a bit of a complex story for some of the kids with shorter attention spans if I just read it it straight. But that's why I always perform a shorter version with the kimono, fan, and money box as my props.

This second one, Twist With a Burger, Jitter With a Bug, was a good find. It's a short but rhythmic little ditty on dancing.

The last book, Down By the Cool of the Pool features a simple rhyme with a bunch of animals dancing. I decided to do a dancing theme after choosing Yoshi's Feast but not finding any other Japanese stories I wanted to tell. I choose the other two books for a gender neutral approach to dance. Too many books talked about little girls taking ballet, so I was happy I found these.