One more octopus dance for young children with the Octaband® to offer to celebrate octopuses on this National Cephalopod Week.
Francesca Nicassio of psicomusic.it in Italy has the children draw their favorite music/movement activity for the day.
This child's favorite was "“Dance with Mimma the jellyfish”. (that's what they call the Octaband®.)
Dr. Theresa Purcell Cone, Associate Professor at Rowan University, NJ was gracious enough to provide me with the following plan:
Sleep - Octopus is still in a low shape.
Wake Up - Octopus begins to slowly move. This can be slow shaking or stretching. Then the Octopus slowly rises up from the ocean floor.
Swim - Octopus swims as it travels around the space. You can designate one student to be a leader and determine the direction. The Octopus can be moving up and down as it travels to show the movement of the tentacles.
Eat - the Octopus stops and finds something to eat. I used a stuffed crab toy, or any other item to represent something the Octopus would eat. The Octopus can move up and down over the food item to demonstrate eating.
Sleep - The Octopus travels back to the starting place in the space and slowly lowers to the floor to return to sleep.
Dr. Cone also added signs and pictures to support the sequence and brought in a stuffed octopus toy and any other items to make the concept more concrete for young children.
You can also purchase Ollie the Octopus as support for your Octaband®/octopus dance.
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