Page 1 - Spring Dance Lesson 12

Resources for Spring Dance Lesson 12: Being Healthy
Activity: ‘Chop, Chop’ (Traditional)
This is an excellent activity for developing fine motor skills and being imaginative!
Tell the children that they are going to make a healthy vegetable soup. Ask a volunteer to suggest a vegetable to include. Mime placing the suggested vegetable on your chopping board (flat palm of right hand facing up). Use your left hand to chop the suggested vegetable with scissors (pointer and middle finger scissor action) on top of the chopping board to the pulse as you say the first, second and fourth lines. Brush the chopped up vegetable into the pot to the pulse as you say the third line. Stirring action to the pulse for 'Stir it round...' Have a taste. "I think we need some more vegetables." Repeat the rhyme using left hand as the chopping board and right hand as the scissors for first, second and fourth lines. Repeat the rhyme again using your left hand as a knife and do a chopping action on your right hand which is the chopping board for first, second and fourth lines. Repeat the rhyme again using your right hand as the knife and your left hand as the chopping board. Lastly use a sword to chop the vegetables! Your right hand is the chopping board again and your whole left arm does a chopping action for the first, third and fourth lines. Repeat the rhyme again using your left hand as the chopping board and your right arm as the sword. “The soup is now ready to eat! Let’s eat it up.” Mime eating soup. “Mmm delicious!” Make sure to choose a new child to suggest a vegetable to chop each time before you repeat the rhyme.
Words
Chop, chop, choppity chop.
Chop off the bottom and chop off the top. What we have left we will put in the pot. Chop, chop, choppity chop.
Stir it round, stir it round, Tell me what you have found.
Other Ideas!
1. Try to make several different vegetable shapes using the entire body. Talk to the children about the differences between the different vegetable’s shapes. E.g. A carrot is long and thin, whereas a potato has a more round shape.
2. Make a real vegetable soup or fruit salad and say the rhyme with your children as you chop up the ingredients.
EYFS Aims
PD (MH)
To develop fine motor skills and upper body coordination and control
CL (LA) & (S)
To develop listening, attention and speech through repetition and rhyme
M (SSM) & L (R)
To pre-empt and join in with the lyrics which follow a repetitive structure/pattern
CL (U)
To develop an understanding of words through actions
© 2020 Lucy Sparkles LTD