Backwards Day: I Move in the Silence

It's Backwards Day: when the music plays, everyone is a statue, and when it goes silent, we dance and move around the room. Children practice paying attention to sound and silence and holding back the urge to move to the music.

How to play

1. First play the regular way: dance with music, freeze like a statue in silence (2 min).
2. The teacher jokingly puts something on backwards (a cap turned around) and announces Backwards Day: music means statues, silence means dance (1 min).
3. Try it with long silences so there's time to dance and short bits of music to hold still (2 min).
4. The teacher shortens the times and plays tricks, turning the volume down little by little until it can't be heard (3 min).
5. Change how we move during the silence: hopping, like robots, in slow motion (1 min).
6. Back to a regular day: dance the last song very slowly, and in the final silence, a sitting statue (1 min).

Rules

• Music means statue; silence means move.
• If you mix it up, laugh and keep playing.
• Move quietly in the silence so you can hear when the music comes back.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: dances with any body part and freezes with their face or arms.
• Hearing impairment: the teacher holds up a scarf while music plays; scarf up means statue, scarf down means dance.
• Autism: give advance notice of the rule change with a "backwards" card and play the regular version longer.

Learning goals

• Tell sound from silence.
• Hold back movement when habit says to move.
• Express themselves through movement in different ways.

Equipment for a class of 25

• música

Teacher tip

Play up Backwards Day with humor so kids really notice the switch. Nobody is out; whoever mixes it up just gets the biggest laugh.

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