Giraffes Can’t Dance

Have you ever had a lesson work
just like you wanted and planned for it to? One of those lessons you seriously
nailed. The kids got it. They were engaged. They were making deep learning
connections and you felt like such a BOSS.

It doesn’t happen often and it’s
the stuff that dreams are made of, so I’m going to pat myself on the back that
it happened today.

Have I mentioned that I really have
grown to enjoy teaching kindergarten? I’ve come a long way since my first disaster
of a kinder guidance lesson. I mean I was kind of setting myself up for disaster
taking on kinder with limited teaching experience for 50 long minutes right
after recess and right before lunch. I am now a confident kinder presenter at
this point in the school year. I’ve gained control and know how to reign all of
their energy and excitement back in. With this new found confidence, I decided
to tackle the ultimate in kinder activities, the craftivity.

We read the book “Giraffes can’t
dance” together and talked about how sometimes it seems like we can’t do
something but really it just takes time and practice. We broke off into a
discussion of how everyone is different, just like the giraffe and his wobbly
legs. Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we aren’t all awesome! He was
able to dance once he found the right music for him. They were fascinated by
this wobbly giraffe who figured out how to dance in the moonlight.

We then made our own wobbly
legged dancing giraffes. I found a free template online by googling “giraffe cut and glue” and I have to tell you,
the kids loved it. We did it step by step together as a group. It took forever,
which is perfect because I seriously have a forever amount of time to fill with
these babies.

We took advantage of every
learning opportunity possible and these kids nailed the concepts I was trying
to teach.

Kid #1: “My giraffe doesn’t look
like hers!”

Kid #2: “That’s good! How
boring would it all be if we were the same?”

Other kid #1: “I messed up and
cut off his ear!”

Other kid #2: “That’s okay! He can
be a little different and have one ear!”

I don’t think I’ve ever been
prouder. 

I found this cut and glue activity (I adapted it a bit) for free here!