Movement Activities for Teaching Listening Skills

Hello!

For this month's blog post, I am linking to a guest post I  wrote for Free Spirit Publishing, the company that published my picture book From A to Z with Energy! 26 Ways to Move and Play.

I have created three new movement activities that are designed around three popular songs for kids. The songs and activities are fun and lively, and children will listen and wait for cues in the music before responding in movement. This is great practice for waiting for and recognizing cues, and developing listening skills and impulse control.

Link to Blog Post:

http://www.movingislearning.com/blog/posts/36240

Keep on Dancin'!


Connie
www.movingislearning.com

MOVING IS LEARNING!

Dance Activities That Help to Nurture Delaying Gratification and Impulse Control in Children

Happy Thanksgiving!     

There are so many benefits of creative movement for young children!  One of the most important is the fostering of social and emotional learning (SEL) in young children.  I have written about these benefits in earlier blog posts.  Some of these SEL skills include:

• Self–Awareness (body awareness, spatial awareness, control of one’s speed, and control of one’s direction in space)
• Understanding Personal Space vs. Shared Space
• Group Cooperation
• Self-Control and Delaying Gratification
• Listening, Understanding, and Responding to Instructions
• Reasoning and Problem-Solving Skills (individually or in a group)
• Self-Expression

Today I am writing about one of these:  the importance of nurturing a child’s ability to delay gratification and strengthen self-control.  This generation of children is growing up in a world where they have instant access to information, technology, and media.  Structured activities can help counteract this frenzy of stimuli, and help children slow down, tune into their bodies and surroundings, and learn that sometimes waiting and anticipating an outcome can be fun and rewarding.

Lauren Tamm, writing for the University of Cincinnati website Kids Activities Blog (https://web.kidsactivitiesblog.com/84534/teach-kids-self-control asks this question:

What if I told you holding your boundary firm and making your child wait was the single most important skill you can teach your child. . .

Tamm continues: Research shows that children with worse self-control (less persistence, more impulsivity and poor attention regulation) at ages 3-11 tend to have worse health, earn less, and commit more crimes 30 years later than those with better self-control as children. (Source: the book Zero to Five, by Tracy Cutchlow).

Sarah Ramirez, writing for the website A Fine Parent (https://afineparent.com/emotional-intelligence/delayed-gratification.html), says her article 5 Easy Ways to Teach Kids Self-Control outlines some more of the reasons it is so important to nurture this trait in children:

• Better emotional coping skills
• Higher rates of educational attainment
• Higher SAT scores
• Lower BMI
• Lower divorce rates
• Lower rates of addiction

WOW!  Amazing.  And yes, research shows that children can be taught to delay gratification.

Ramirez explains that the above conclusions are the result of long-term follow-up research from the famous “marshmallow test” conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel and other researchers in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s at Stanford University:

One by one, 4-year-old children were presented with a marshmallow and informed that they could either eat a marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes and receive two marshmallows. Some children gobbled the marshmallow immediately, while others managed to wait the full 15 minutes and receive the reward of a second marshmallow.

The researchers continued to follow up with the children for the next several decades.  They found that the 4-year-olds who had successfully waited for 15 minutes differed in significant ways from the children who couldn’t wait . . . Walter Mischel concluded that ‘preschoolers tended to wait longer when they were given effective strategies.’  In other words, self-control and delayed gratification are essential life skills – but they can be learned.

MOVEMENT ACTIVITIES 

I have taken ideas from the marshmallow test, Sarah Ramirez, and Lauren Tamm's University of Cincinnati Kids Activities Blog, and created four simple movement activities, along with some ideas for variations:  

1.  MIRROR GAME

This activity is a type of follow-the-leader game, which helps children listen and respond to instructions. They will need to watch carefully for their movement cues. It also allows children to practice controlling their body movements, and become aware of the speed and direction of these movements.  

Explain to the children that when they watch you, they will do the same things you are doing, by imagining they were looking into a mirror. Practice a few easy movements with your arm or leg, making sure they use the corresponding mirror-image arm or leg. Put on some fun music, and, starting out slowly, move as the children mirror your movements.

You can begin by trying the game sitting on the floor and using upper-body movements while the children get the hang of the mirror game.  Then progress to standing.  Challenge the children by turning, moving side-to-side, and trying balancing shapes on one leg.
 

Follow me while we are standing up!

Look into the mirror and follow me!

2.  DANCE AND FREEZE

The wonderful thing about dance/freeze activities is that they are easy and accessible (all you need is music!), children love them, and they are great for helping them to practice following instructions, listening, and body and impulse control.  Here are two simple dance/freeze games.

  Stop Sign Dance and Freeze

For this activity, choose a musical selection that the children like.  Use a homemade or purchased stop sign.  Ask the children what it is, and what the word on it means.  Explain that when you hold up the stop sign,

Watch for the stop sign!

they should freeze:  Don't move a muscle until I put the stop sign down. You may dance when the stop sign is down, but each time I hold up the stop sign, you freeze.  

Expand the game with different ideas for the freeze, for example: freeze in a twisty shape, or an upside down shape, or a shape with only one hand and one foot touching the floor.



Here is a variation with additional practice for the children to control the speed at which they are moving: 

  Traffic Signals Dance and Freeze

Instead of a stop sign, cut out three large circles of construction paper or cardboard, one green, one yellow, and one red.  Use a lively musical selection.

Explain to the children:  When I hold up the green light, you may dance as fast as you like.  When I hold up the yellow light, you will dance slowly, like a slow-motion action scene in a movie.  When I hold up the red light, freeze, and don't move a muscle!

Green means go!

3.  CHOOSE AN ANIMAL AND TAKE A TURN

Helping children to master the skill of waiting for their turn lends itself easily to movement activities.  Here is a simple lesson that also gives children the opportunity to practice large motor skills.

Start with the children in a line or gathered on one side of a space.  They will go across the space one by one.  Ask each child to name an animal, and then to move across the space like that animal. 

Free Dance:  Once the activity has been accomplished, and all of the children have waited their turns to go across, ask them what their favorite animal is.  Play some music, and allow them to dance freely about animals.

Variation:

Have animal names written on file cards, and when it is a child's turn to go across, he picks a card at random and moves like that animal.

Hop like a bunny!

4.  CAMPFIRE*

Calm an energetic class at the end of the day with a game about settling down, helping children to tune into their bodies, be aware of their senses (sight, smell, hearing) and relax.

This can also be used as a transitional activity, to quiet children down before moving on to something else.   


Say to the children:

Have you ever been camping in the woods? Did you sit around a campfire?  Let’s imagine we are spending the night in the woods.  It is a cold, clear fall night.  Let’s build a campfire to get warm!  We will build it in the center of our circle.

Continue with the following movement prompts:

Let’s imagine we are gathering wood.  Bring it to this spot in the center of the room.

Put the small pieces in, and I will pretend to light our fire.  Now let’s put some big logs on the fire! 

Let's sit near the fire and warm up our hands and feet.  Do you smell the wood fire?  Do you smell pine needles and leaves in the forest?  What else?

Let's lie back and climb into our sleeping bags.  Look up at the sky.  What do you see in the night sky?  Be very quiet.  What sounds do you hear in the forest at night? Be aware of your breathing, and try to feel your heartbeat.

*Lesson from: One, Two, What Can I Do?  Dance and Music for the Whole Day, Dow, Redleaf Press, 2011

Keep on Dancin',

Connie

MOVING IS LEARNING!

https://www.scbwi.org/members-public/connie-dow

Stickers, Stamps, and Stoplights...Oh MY!

Let's see a show of hands...

How many of you have ever tried some sort of behavior management system such as a stoplight, alerts, or writing names on the board in a last ditch effort to make kids behave?

I have to admit, for many years I used systems that included a stoplight, stickers, stamps, time out and a treasure box. 

Honestly, I thought I was doing the right thing.  I really didn't know any differently! 

That is, until one day when I was at our state early childhood conference with a coworker.  She wanted to attend a workshop titled:  "How to Handle all the Fussing, Fighting, Fits, and Tantrums."  Honestly, I didn't want to go.  I figured it was going to be "just another behavior workshop" telling me what I already knew.  At the time I truly believed I had this behavior thing all under control!

Since I didn't want to walk around the conference all by myself, I attended the workshop with my friend, and to my pleasant surprise what I discovered that day would change my life over the next few years!  That workshop was about Conscious Discipline and once I got a little nibble, I wanted the WHOLE BITE!

I came to discover over the next few years that the systems of stickers, stamps, and stoplights I was using were actually interfering with my relationship with my students as well as their optimal development.  In my attempt to control their behavior and I wasn't teaching them a great amount of self-control.

Conscious Discipline has given me tons of new tools that help me connect with students rather than attempting to control them.  I want to share one of the first rituals I started using in my classroom that made a tremendous difference in the sense of unity that we felt.  My hope is that you have time to prepare some rituals this summer so you can begin the next school year building connections with your students rather than planning how you'll control them!  It sure is easier on the pocketbook too! 

You can get started with your Wish Well Ritual with one easy visit to the Dollar Store.  All you need is a pizza pan, clear contact paper or packing tape, a red heart, magnetic tape, and photos of your students (or some other icon to represent all your students and classroom staff). 

It looks something like this...

 

 

Put all the pictures around the edge of the pizza pan with the heart in the middle.  We call this our "circle of friends."

 

This isn't your typical attendance routine!  It will transform your classroom!  Each day, at the beginning of the day, have one of the children count to see if everyone is present. 

 

If anyone is missing from your "circle of friends" they move that picture to the center of the heart and lead the class in singing this song.  "We wish you well, we wish you well.  All through the day today, we wish you well."  We send them heart felt warm wishes as well as prayers for safety and healing while they are away from our school family.

 

To make this more concrete for the younger children I use this little doll with a photo of the absent child in the plastic sleeve on the front.  We pass the doll around and give it a hug while we sing the song!

 

 

 

When the absent child returns to school the following day, we have another special ritual we do for them.  We call it our Absent Child Ritual.  To welcome them back to our "circle of friends" we recite this little chant and give them a butterfly kiss like this...

 

 



With the younger children we use a shiny little heart-shaped box filled with kisses to welcome the absent child back to class.  While the child is gone we pass the box around and "fill it with kisses" for our friend.  Upon their return, we "shower them with kisses" by shaking all the love out of the box  onto their head.  :)

 

This was only the beginning of our journey from a climate of control and competition to a climate of caring, connection, and love!  Connection leads to impulse control, willingness, and cooperation.

 

Suddenly, parents started telling me that instead of coming home and reporting who had to move their clip, sit in timeout, or miss recess, their children were sharing about who was missing from class that day.  They would include them in their bedtime prayers and really began caring for their classmates in a new way. 

 

I used stickers, stamps, and stoplights because I didn't know any other way.  That's what I was taught to do in college and it was what everyone around me was doing.  I didn't realize that these fear-based methods actually created more stress and inhibited learning and connection.  Now that I know better, I choose to do better.  Will you join me? 

 

Perhaps you could watch some of Dr. Bailey's videos on Youtube this summer, read one of her books, or check out Shubert's Classroom for more ideas about how to get started with Conscious Discipline or continue growing in your journey!  As always, I wish you well!

 

Jenny Spencer

Conscious Discipline Certified Instructor

Ignite Learning with Conscious Discipline LLC

www.ignitelearningllc.blogspot.com