Dance Party Storytime with Miss Sara!

Dance Party is a a program I started at the Bonita Library that quickly became an overwhelming success! I am very excited to bring it to the El Cajon Library on Friday mornings at 10:30am!

Music and movement storytimes are relatively new in the library/storytime world, but they are a SUPER fun way to develop early literacy skills with your child! The dancing, singing, playing instruments, and following along to the songs in this kind of storytime help children with their rhythm, verbal memory, listening and instruction following skills, vocabulary, phonological and phonemic awareness, and family involvement, just to name a few!

I will tell you, I did not just choose these songs at random, but read a number of blogs and listened to a TON of music by various children's musicians and bands. Some of the best resources I found were the Bibliobop blog post on Storytiming, BabyDance post on Fat Girl Reading, and both Silly Songs Dance Party and Family Dance Party on Jbrary.

Since repetition is an important component of early literacy, there will be a few core songs you will hear every week at Dance Party. Each week will feature one of the following props: scarves, bean bags, and egg shakers, each having their own special playlist of songs.

Song (click link to hear)	Artist (link to artist webpage)	Album (click link to buy)	Link to Catalog! (click link to request)
Good Morning   (lyrics)	Stacy Buehler	Songs for Wiggleworms	SDCL Catalog
All Ready to Go (lyrics)	Scribblemonster	Songs With No Character	Link+ Catalog
Dance All Day (lyrics)	Bari Koral	Rock and Roll Garden	N/A
Everybody Clap Your Hands	Hullabaloo Band	Tall as a Tree	SDCL Catalog
Arms Up!	William Janiak	Arms Up Keep Moving	SDCL Catalog
Boom Boom	Bari Koral	Rock and Roll Garden	N/A
The Goldfish (lyrics)	Laurie Berkner	Best of the Laurie Berker Band	SDCL Catalog
Goodbye, Goodbye	Joanie Leeds and the Night Lights	I’m a Rockstar	Link+ Catalog
Scarves
Jump Jump! (lyrics)	Joanie Leeds and the Night Lights	I’m a Rockstar	Link+ Catalog
All the Fish (lyrics)	Caspar Babypants	I Found You!	SDCL Catalog
Pop Like Popcorn	Draza Jansky	Magic Light	*See note below
I Put My Scarf on My Head (lyrics)	Sukey Molloy	I am Happy!	N/A
Green Means Go	Draza Jansky	Magic Light	*See note below
Bean Bags
Your Own Dance Moves (lyrics)	Eric Litwin and Michael Levine	Outrageous Orange	Link+ Catalog
Bicycle (lyrics)	Laurie Berkner	Superhero	SDCL Catalog
Drivin’ in my Car	Ralph’s World	Ralph’s World	SDCL Catalog
Beanie Bag Dance	Greg and Steve	Kids in Action	SDCL Catalog
Bean Bag Rock	Georgiana Liccione Stewart	Bean Bag Activities & Coordination Skills	N/A
Throw and Catch	Dinonastics	Dinonastics Bean Bag Songs Activity Songs	N/A
Shakers
Milkshake Song	Anne-Marie Akin	Songs for Wiggleworms	SDCL Catalog
I Know a Chicken (lyrics)	Laurie Berkner	Best of the Laurie Berker Band	SDCL Catalog
The Freeze	Greg and Steve	Kids in Motion	SDCL Catalog

*Draza Jansky is a former San Diegan and performer at our libraries. She has given me permission to share the MP3 files of these songs with interested parents. If you would like them, please let me know!

So there we go! I hope you come and dance with me!