comments

Tots boogie to the beat at North Royalton library

724 tot dANCE 011.jpg
Toddlers and parents stomp about like monsters in a circle game at Tots Dance. (Kitt Kurtz)
Kitt Kurtz, Sun News By Kitt Kurtz, Sun News Sun News
Email the author
on July 25, 2014 at 9:57 AM, updated July 26, 2014 at 10:54 AM
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! At the li-birdie!
724 tot dANCE 014.jpg Little ones jiggle and shake colorful beanbags in a circle dance at North Royalton Library  
724 tot dANCE 044.jpg Matthew Cossel smiling at his favorite place, the li-birdie! 

NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio -- Perpetual motion describes the frenetic scene at the popular "Tots Dance" program at North Royalton Library. Parents join in while tots, ages 1-5, put on their boogie shoes and move to the beat of rhythmic music.

Librarian June Bullock led the lively little ones in creative movements. Two-year-old Kenny Bell joined his brother Lleyton, age 4, in tossing beanbags and clapping rhythm sticks.

When asked what he liked best, 2- year-old Matthew Cossel said, "Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! At the li-birdie!"

Library page Valerie Vopat, a sophomore at CSU, assists with the program. "It's a lot of fun for all the kids. They love coming in and letting out their energy."

The program was originally created by former North Royalton librarian Anne Lynch, while working on her Master's in Library Science. Gross motor skills, such as stomping and clapping to rhythmic music, help to promote the development of early literacy and math skills.

Interaction with others and the environment is another benefit that aids in developing communicating, negotiating, and problem solving skills, foundations for later academic achievement.

"I think it's excellent," said Nancy Zelenka as she watched her granddaughter, Anna, join in swaying and waving colorful scarves. "It's a great program to build social skills."

Tot Dance is one of the many programs offered at North Royalton Library. It's held regularly throughout the year.

After an hour of exuberant exercising, the program ended at 8 p.m., another bonus for parents. The toddlers were worn out and ready for bed!
http://www.cleveland.com/north-royalton/index.ssf/2014/07/tots_boogie_to_the_beat_at_nor.html
www.cleveland.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-14
74610
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:SU4R3W3VV4A2NWM6SLF6QN4W67XZRMLW
<urn:uuid:86dc3199-e9d9-4d42-ae8a-f6552a1388d9>
2015-03-29T14:00:37Z
184.25.157.18
sha1:O4HEN2OHTXAYELEZRUTF4GZGCZFUROJ6
<urn:uuid:f24a4e1c-4e2e-48a0-aafb-29ee2728ab88>
http://www.cleveland.com/north-royalton/index.ssf/2014/07/tots_boogie_to_the_beat_at_nor.html
response
<urn:uuid:c5fa6fae-136a-4ae7-8503-7100c77859be>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-14
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for March 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf