D is for Dancing

For the past two years, I was able to do a co-op preschool for Annie with a group of friends in Las Vegas. I'm so happy to have another great group of moms here in San Antonio to do a preschool for Abigail. This past week was my first turn and I was assigned the letter D. In the past I have done a dinosaur theme and a dentist them. Since the five little preschoolers are all girls I decided this year I could get away with a dancing theme. The books we read were:

Jellybeans and the Big Dance

Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance

Giraffes Can't Dance

Angelina Ballerina

I recommend them all. They delighted and amused all giggling three-year-olds.

The best part was the crafts.
The first day we made ribbon sticks. Really, I pre-made the ribbon sticks with help from Lee who nailed a snap swivel fishing lure holder into the ends of the 12 inch dowels. I sewed the ends of the 3 foot ribbon strips and put in eyelets on one end to attach the ribbon to the lure holders. The girls got to paint the dowels the color of their choice which ended up being pink or purple.
So actually the best part was the dancing. The girls loved their creations and had fun dancing with the ribbons sticks. They were great at following directions. They made circles in the air like helicopters, tornadoes and ferris wheels. They laughed as they waved the ribbons around to make trees, butterflies, birds and even snakes.

Our second day craft was legwarmers. This is another easy and fun activity that required a little bit of prep on my part....easy sewing. I bought 5 sets of white knee socks and cut off the foot. From the foot part I cut the heel and toe and discarded those sections. That left me with a band I folded in half and sewed to the cut end of the sock to create a cuff. During preschool the girls used an assortment of fabric markers to decorate their leg warmers. They drew various shapes including jellybeans to represent the Jellybean book we had read. Mostly they did polkadots. Again, the best part was the dancing. After donning the leg warmers we turned on the tunes and used a couple of cute segments from the interactive Baby Dance DVD (another recommended title) to guide us. The girls practiced basic ballet moves and danced around the room with scarves. Lots of fun!