Preschool Lesson Plan Activity – Dance on Popular Rhymes

“In our field it has become the accepted “norm” that a preschool lesson plan has to be made during personal time and that is just the nature of teaching”, said a teacher I met recently.

Teachers, especially early childhood educators everywhere, are stressed and burnt out. They love spending time with the little ones; listening to kids’ narrations of what they did at home and helping them achieve their developmental goals. However when it comes to their own ‘Me’ time, they often have to give it up to creating their preschool lesson plan and/or searching for engaging activities for their preschoolers.

I’ve spent many years collaborating with teachers on strategies for effective classroom management. And I have heard many teachers confess that sometimes they have no energy left by the end of the week. And even then, teachers love their kids, which is why they still go on no matter how tired or burnt out they may feel.

So, when our Team Kaju at Nayi Disha Studios sat down to think about how we can express gratitude to teachers on this ‘Teacher Appreciation Day’, we instantly agreed on doing something that will give teachers their personal ‘Me’ time and will give them some time off from their search for exciting and developmentally appropriate activities for their kids.

This Teachers’ Day we would like to gift you an exciting dance app to include in your lesson plan through which your kids will not only sing and learn the classic rhymes but also dance with our loveable preschooler Mei Mei. We know that preschoolers love a musical activity if it is sung “live” or if it involves movement. Mei Mei loves dancing and kids all around the world love copying Mei Mei’s dance moves. So get going and use this game to build gross motor skills, boost early language development, grow vocabulary and speak your children’s love language, that is, the language of play.

Here are some exciting ways in which you may incorporate this app in your own preschool lesson plan-

1. Use it to meet developmental goals-developing gross motor skills, pre-reading skills, vocabulary, and early language development: Dancing has many benefits for preschoolers. All you have to do is to ask your class to get up and get ready to dance. Introduce the character Mei Mei to them. Let them know that MeiMei is their age and she is here today to dance with them. Tell them that mei mei really likes when everyone dances with her.Ask your kids “so are you ready to do what Mei Mei is doing and dance with her?”Ask them to say ‘yes’ loudly.Play this game and see the energy flow in your classroom.
2.  Use it as a brain break: Another way to use the dance with the Mei Mei app is to make it a brain break activity. Brain breaks are fun filled movement based breaks that energize children. So whenever you feel your kids are losing energy, get them on their feet and get them to dance with Mei Mei. You can use any one song from the app as a brain break.
3. Use it as a transition activity: As a preschool teacher we all know that helping the little ones transition from one activity to another can take a while. I am sure we all have our toolbox of transition songs, the transition bell and if nothing else then our traditional transition counting up to 10. How about using dance to transition from one activity to another?Remind your kids of the upcoming transition. Let them know how much time they have to finish the activity they are presently involved in. Once you approach closer to the time let the kids know that as soon as it is time up you are all going to play the dance game before moving to the next activity and everyone must come dance with Mei Mei. (This is assuming that you have introduced Mei Mei to the class before and painted a picture of the character in children’s minds). Play the game and see its effect. You will be surprised to see how kids transition quickly in excitement to dance with Mei Mei.

These are some of the ways to make your preschool lesson plan exciting however I am sure there are multiple other ways to play this dance app in your classroom.

We hope that you like this small gesture of ours. Hope you have fun dancing and singing with Mei Mei and it makes your lesson a fun-filled experience for kids.

How to turn your classroom into a fun dance floor?

It’s simple! All you need to do is turn on this dance game and cast it wirelessly to the TV in your classroom. Wireless casting or mirroring works with Android TV or Google Chromecast, or Apple TV respectively.

Click here to downloadd the app now, and get started!