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Freeze dance Physical activity links: Vigorous play; creativity and self-expression; social skills; developing

movement skills (e.g. locomotor and body control) Language/literacy links: Vocabulary development; support play with talk and sign (e.g. interpreting

directions); pretending Equipment: Music (e.g. CD player, radio, singing) Where: Indoors or outdoors Book link: Slither, Swoop, Swing by Alex Ayliffe; Animmachines by Debora Pearson

� Invite the children to move to the music (e.g. walk, skip, roll, twirl, sway). Stop the music and call “freeze.” The challenge for the children is to stay perfectly still until you start the music again (e.g. three to four seconds).

� Play freeze dance differently by:

○ Calling out different characters or objects and have the children move like: an ice-skater spinning; a puppy with a sore paw; a cat stalking a bird; a sleek racing car; a donkey pulling a very heavy load...

Let’s play

3464 Games: Balancing Our Bodies Physical Activity & Screen Time

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Try this way � Read the book Slither, Swoop, Swing or and act out the movements in the pictures.

Take turns coming up with and calling out movement ideas. Use these actions in freeze dance.

� While playing freeze dance have the children interpret feeling words with movement: happily, sadly, energetically, solemnly, mysteriously, joyfully, etc.

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PHYSICAL ACTIVITY & LITERACY

Healthy Beginnings 2-5 Games: Creative Alternatives to Screen Time 65

Excerpt from the HOP Early Learning Practitioners Resource (Decoda Literacy Solutions)

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