Mountain King Tiptoe — Moving as the Music Speeds Up

The child listens to a famous piece of orchestral music that starts as a slow creep and ends in a wild gallop, and lets their feet follow the speed of the music all the way.

  1. Find a recording of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King (about two and a half minutes). Clear a space on the floor.
  2. Set the scene: “We are sneaking through a troll king’s cave. Your feet have to go exactly as fast as the music — no faster, no slower.”
  3. Start the music. It begins very slowly and quietly — tiptoe one careful step for each note of the tune.
  4. As the music gets faster, the steps get faster: tiptoe, then walk, then march, then jog on the spot or in a circle.
  5. At the crashing ending, freeze in a troll statue on the last chord.
  6. Sit down and talk: “What happened to the music? Was it fast or slow at the start? At the end?” Play the first and last ten seconds again to compare.

Variation: on another day play something that stays slow all the way through (Saint-Saëns’ The Swan or The Elephant) and something fast (Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee) and let the child pick one way of moving that fits each.

Requirements

  • Space: About 2 × 3 meters of clear floor
  • Surface: Non-slip floor or carpet; bare feet or shoes, not socks on a smooth floor
  • Materials: A device to play the recording
  • Participants: 1 child minimum; more fun with an adult or siblings moving too
  • Supervision: Light to moderate — the ending gets wild, so stay close

Rationale & Objective

Matching movement to tempo changes is a listed measure for this subdomain and part of the EYFS expectation that children listen attentively and move to music. Young children understand musical ideas with their bodies before they can explain them — the principle behind Dalcroze eurhythmics and behind Feierabend’s use of classical recordings for movement — so stepping a tempo is how a 5-year-old “analyses” it. This piece is unusually good for the job because one short tune repeats while the speed and loudness climb gradually, which makes the child keep re-adjusting instead of matching a tempo once. Slowing the body down for the opening is the difficult part: preschoolers’ natural tempo is brisk, and slowing down to match a slower pulse is a skill that is still developing — it comes more easily at 4 than at 2½ (Provasi & Bobin-Bègue, 2003). The piece is also on the Core Knowledge Kindergarten listening list, so the child meets a real piece of the orchestral repertoire and learns its name.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: moves with delight but at one speed throughout; rushes the slow opening; notices only the loud ending
  • Developing: clearly slower at the start and faster at the end, changing in two or three jumps; says afterwards that the music “got fast”
  • Proficient: steps roughly in time with the slow opening and speeds up gradually with the music; freezes on the final chord; describes the piece with fast, slow, loud, and quiet
  • Advanced: steps the beat accurately through most of the piece; matches tempo in unfamiliar music at first hearing; recognizes and names the piece when heard again

Safety Notes

  • Clear toys, rugs that slide, and sharp furniture corners from the space — the fast ending is a real run
  • No socks on smooth floors; bare feet grip best
  • With more than one child, have everyone travel the same way round the circle, or jog on the spot for the fast part
  • Keep the volume moderate; the ending is much louder than the beginning, so set the level by the loudest part
  • Some children find the music frightening. Let them watch you do it first, or listen from a lap, and never insist

Hints

  • Playfulness: tell the story — Peer Gynt is tiptoeing out of the troll king’s cave, the trolls wake up and chase him, and the mountain crashes down at the end
  • Sustain interest: change the body part each time — fingers walking on the table, a scarf waving, a teddy bouncing on the knee, tapping two wooden spoons
  • Common mistake: starting too fast. Do the slow opening with the child, taking exaggerated slow-motion steps, so the speeding-up has somewhere to go
  • Limited space: stay seated and “walk” two fingers along the table or up an arm, or tap the tempo on knees
  • Cross-domain: draw the music afterwards as a line that starts flat and climbs (early graphing); retell the troll story (narrative language); going slow on purpose is inhibitory-control practice
  • Progression: show slow versus fast only → follow the gradual speeding-up → step the actual beat → show fast and slow in unfamiliar pieces → conduct the tempo with a scarf while others move

Sources

  • Core Knowledge Sequence (E.D. Hirsch) — Kindergarten Music listening list, including Grieg, “In the Hall of the Mountain King”
  • Development Matters (Department for Education, England) — Reception: “Listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses”
  • Feierabend, J.M. — First Steps in Music for Preschool and Beyond (GIA Publications) — movement to classical recordings
  • Jaques-Dalcroze, É. — Rhythm, Music and Education (eurhythmics: musical understanding through movement)
  • Provasi, J. & Bobin-Bègue, A. (2003), “Spontaneous motor tempo and rhythmical synchronisation in 2½- and 4-year-old children,” International Journal of Behavioral Development
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 34 — explores musical concepts and expression