Captivating the attention of a group of young children is no small feat. And it doesn’t matter how big or small the group is (I once had a class of 3 girls who ran circles around me for weeks). If you aren’t keeping things interesting, their minds wander off. It’s age appropriate. Actually, it’s human appropriate.
But there are ways to keep re-engaging your students…
Kids LOVE to play pretend. They especially love to pretend to be animals. Which makes animal imagery a great tool in dance class to get them engaged and participating with enthusiasm. But sometimes you add an animal activity to your lesson plan, imagining your students transforming into light, graceful butterflies and strong, fierce tigers only to have this happen:
Years ago I had a student who was constantly falling down in class. On purpose. Every time I asked the pre-ballet class to do an arabesque, balancing on one leg with the other stretched out in a straight line behind them, this student tumbled to the ground. And then the other kids laughed. And she laughed. And I got frustrated. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
I was much newer to teaching then. I spent so much time and energy trying to gain control of the situation with very little success. If I were to teach that class today, my approach would be completely different. How?
Do you dance daily?
I do. But it’s not what you might think. In fact, if you had asked me a month ago if I danced daily, I would’ve said “No, but I wish I did.” Or “I’m trying to but sometimes I miss days or weeks before getting back to it.”
I imagined myself renting studio space or taking online classes or at least doing a long luxurious BrainDance every morning. And while I still have goals to do those things more often, feeling like I was failing at dancing daily because I wasn’t doing those things was holding me back from actually dancing more.
