Musical Balances
Develop the skills of balance, run, jump, hop and skip through music. An excellent activity for larger groups. Great to incorporate KIDDO resources, like the Balance Dice or Animal Balance Pose Diagram.
Designate a playing space large enough for children to move freely in. The educator has musical playing. Some songs we like to use are: Roar Like a Dinosaur, Do the Hullabaloo, Everywhere’s a Dancefloor (Justine Clarke songs) and I like to Move it from Madagascar. You can find lots more music ideas from the KIDDO_AU playlist on Spotify.
- Turtle
- Giraffe
- Snake
- Lion
- Dog
- Flamingo
- Monkey
Download a copy of KIDDO's Musical Balances Cards for this activity: https://kiddo.edu.au/ecec/library/musical-balances-cards
Step 1
- Children move around the space doing the locomotor skill that the educator says, such as gallop, run backwards, hop etc
Step 2
- When the music stops, children must freeze and then go and stand on a marker and make a balance like the animal pose that the educator is holding up (download here: https://kiddo.edu.au/ecec/library/musical-balances-cards), or copy the pose the educator is doing
Step 3
- Once everyone has balanced, the educator plays the music again and the children continue moving around the space, completing a new locomotor skill
- You don't need to use markers, children can choose where they feel comfortable trying to balance
- Stack instructions, such as "balance like a flamingo, then run to the tree and eat the leaves off the tree like a giraffe"
Ask children if anyone has played musical statues – then explain that in Musical Balances, when the music stops you have to freeze and then go and stand on a marker and make a balance like one of the animal poses. Explore ways to maintain your balance, by explaining the teaching cues of;
- Head up
- Eyes forward looking at something ahead of them e.g. tree
- Let a child have a turn at choosing an animal to balance as
- Get an idea of what music your children like - theme songs from favourite TV shows are a good option
