The Spacewalk Shuffle
by David & Anne Ellsworth
Movement for your youngest students is key. And pretending to float around in outer space is a great way to let them incorporate listening, focus, and imagination into their movement as well. The recording for "The Spacewalk Shuffle" will help them blast off with spacey sound FX that will take their musical adventures out-of-this-world!
The introduction to this song invites singers to walk around in rhythm – in place, in a circle, or freely around a designated space. Then at the verses, you could either have them stop moving, continue what they were doing in the intro, or add a few basic movements on key words. For example, pretending to fly in a rocket ship could be pantomimed by putting arms over their heads, hands together like the nose of a rocket, and rocking or tilting side to side.
The chorus is the part of the song that is all movement done in SLOW MOTION as your kids act out floating in zero gravity. It's emphasized by a shift in the groove from shuffle to a straight eighth note rhythm. Be sure to remind them to move slowly and freely here, perhaps demonstrating for them as you go. After eight measures, it returns to the shuffle groove and repeats as before.
The floating section also repeats after the verses, but the ending comes abruptly, so tell kids to listen carefully. The cue comes from a quirky outer space sound effect followed by some infamous words (spoken for us by our studio guitarist, Sandy).
Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.