Book to Boogie: “Cold, Crunchy, Colorful: Using Our Senses”

Book to Boogie is a monthly series that pairs picture books with dance and movement activities for preschool story time. The series is curated by Kerry Aradhya of Picture Books & Pirouettes and written by a different guest writer each month. We hope that children’s librarians, as well as classroom teachers and dance educators, will find these activities useful and fun!

By Julie Dietzel-Glair

Our five senses give richness to our experiences. Imagine being able to feel a strawberry but not being able to taste its sweetness. Seeing a violin is merely a tease of the magic that is its sound. Children are experts in using all of their senses to enjoy the world around them — why do you think babies put everything in their mouths?

All five senses are presented visually with bright, colorful photographs in Jane Brocket’s Cold, Crunchy, Colorful: Using Our Senses. There are photographs of pretty flowers, noisy waterfalls, prickly cactuses, stinky garbage, sour lemons, and more. Children love looking at images of familiar objects, so this book is one that children can enjoy on their own after they are introduced to it.

The minimal text also makes this an accessible nonfiction title for story time. Many librarians are looking for ways to incorporate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) into their programming; this title makes a great choice, as it introduces a science concept on a simple level.

Interpretive Dance: Exploring the Senses

Two to three pages of the book are devoted to each of the five senses. Read about sight, then stop and move in a way that can be seen. Then pick the book back up and read about sound. Stop and move for each sense. Examples include:

• Sight: Make big movements that can be seen from a distance.
• Sound: Clap or stomp loudly.
• Touch: Touch the floor or walls with different parts of your body.
• Smell: Follow your nose to a pretend scent. Move gently toward a pleasant scent or quickly away from a disgusting one. You may also wish to bring a spray bottle with a lavender scent to spray in the air.
• Taste: Pucker your lips like you ate something sour. How does the rest of your body react to the taste? If allowed, bring in lemon slices to taste.

Interpretive Dance: Exploring the Photographs

Choose a photograph from each page and create a movement to match. Examples include:

• Flowers (sight): Crouch down, then slowly stand up and spread your arms like a blooming flower.
• Clock (sound): Move your arms like the hands of a clock.
• Cold water (touch): Shiver as you pretend to jump into a cold pool.
• Rotten apple (smell): Start big and round, then shrivel into yourself as you rot.
• Minty toothpaste (taste): Pretend to brush your teeth.

Interpretive Dance: Exploring Real Objects

Bring some of the objects pictured in the photographs to story time and then move the way each object makes your body feel. Examples from the book include a flower (sight), a bell (sound), a rough stone (touch), fresh soil (smell), and candy (taste).

Be sure to look for other books in Jane Brocket’s Clever Concepts series to include in story time. Can you move like the different textures in Spiky, Slimy, Smooth: What is Texture? or the patterns in Spotty, Stripy, Swirly: What Are Patterns?

Julie Dietzel-Glair is a freelance writer and library consultant. Before entering her freelance career, she worked in Maryland public libraries for 11 years, first as a children’s librarian and then as an assistant children’s services coordinator. She is the author of Books in Motion: Connecting Preschoolers with Books through Art, Games, Movement, Music, Playacting and Props (ALA Neal-Schuman, 2013). Her second book, Get Real with Storytime: 52 Weeks of Early Literacy Programming with Nonfiction and Poetry, is co-authored by Marianne Crandall Follis and due to be published in December 2015 by Libraries Unlimited. She is active in the Association for Library Service to Children, the Children’s Services Division of the Maryland Library Association, and Capitol Choices. You can find out more about Julie at http://ift.tt/ZnwCrZ or follow her on Twitter at @JulieDGWrites.

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