Submitted by Colleen Jerns, Bellingham, Washington

Idea posted January 26, 2010

I do this fun movement activity with my second graders. For several classes, we work on singing the song, "Old Dan Tucker" (from Music K-8, Vol. 5, No. 4). I don't teach the movement until we really know the song. I use this song with our pioneer unit and for teaching verse/refrain. It's a good vocabulary builder for the ELL kids (with words like "limb," "hound," "curious," and how people in the olden days said things like "throwed" instead of "threw," and other grammatical errors).

We start with promenade for the entire introduction. All students stand in a circle in couples. I tell them to first face each other and either take hands in an "O" shape or an "X" shape, then shift so they are shoulder to shoulder still holding hands, both facing counter-clockwise. Promenade for the introduction, then stop and sing the first verse. Once they sing the refrain, "Git out the way," they promenade again but this time as soon as they say, "You're too late to come to supper," they do a right arm swing with their partner for 7 counts and switch arms on Beat 8. Then, they do a left arm swing for 7 counts and then on Beat 8 cross their arms over their chest and do a dosey-do, dosey-do, dosey-do, dosey-stop. Sing the second verse. They say this while they do one complete dosey-do.

On the refrain, they promenade again. As soon as they say, "You're too late to come to supper," they do the right arm swing, left arm swing, and dosey-do pattern like after the last refrain. Now they sing the third verse. On the last refrain, they promenade. As soon as it gets to the spoken part, "Git out the way," they put their hands in the air on the, "Git out the way" part in a "V" shape. Then, put hands on hips for the "Old Dan Tucker" part and alternate like that until the coda is complete.

I have two kids come up to the front to learn promenade, arm swing, and dosey-do. The class watches them learn and then they each go get a different partner and demonstrate again. They get new partners and keep going until everyone has been taught, then we do it as an entire class. Make sure you tell them how arm swings are not like, "crack the whip." One step per beat and anyone flying into the wall loses recess for a week. They get my drift that way.