Book to Boogie: “Hello, New York City!”

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 Maria Hanley

The book I choose this month — Hello, New York City! by David Walker — is one of my favorites. It’s my son’s favorite, too! We live in New York City, so this book has extra meaning to the students I read and move with. Read on to explore the amazing sites of New York City through movement…

First, ask your students if they have ever been to New York City. This can inform your lesson and open up new ideas to add to the story. Since the book is on the shorter side, I like to move to it while I read it. It also saves time so you can go through the book more than once!

Each page of the book says “Hello” to a site or scene in New York City. I added movement ideas for each of the pages:

Hello,

Wide awake pigeons — jump and fly fast.

Sleepy horses —  gallop around the room slowly.

Noisy seals —  lay down on the ground and clap your hands like the seals.

Quiet fish —  swim around like fish, making a fishy face.

Graceful dancers — use arms and legs to lightly dance around the room.

Clumsy clowns — juggle and walk the tightrope, then fall down!

New baby — lay down on the floor and roll.

Old dinosaur — make a dinosaur shape and stomp like a dinosaur.

Smooth train car — make a people train and smoothly walk around the room as a team.

Pointy lady — make a pointy shape, and dance with points.

Can you guess which places these correspond to? If you wanted to spend more then one library session on this book, you could explore each place, too!

Books that would go well with Hello, New York City! are A Walk in New York by Salvatore Rubbino and Larry Gets Lost in New York City by John Skewes and Michael Mullin.

Guest blogger Maria Hanley.

Maria Hanley is an early childhood dance educator in New York City. Maria teaches infant, toddler, and preschool movement and dance all over the city — 26 classes a week, to be exact! When she’s not teaching, she writes on her blog Maria’s Movers and for the Kids Concepts Column at Dance Advantage. On both sites, Maria regularly offers tips and tools for teachers who create with young dancers and movers. 

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