Elevating your early childhood dance program

Josie Dease
Oct 9, 2023
9 min read

Updated: Oct 10, 2023

We, as studio owners, know that our early childhood dance classes (preschool through 3rd grade) are among our most important, if not THE most important classes we hold each week. We also know it takes a VERY special kind of teacher to bring the kind of energy these early learners need to stay engaged. In recent years, engaging our youngest students seems to get harder and harder. We teach the same syllabus we've taught for years, but as the kids say, it's "hitting different" with our current students. At a time when retaining students is crucial, studio owners may no longer have the option of dismissing wiggly kids who might not be "ready" for their dance classes. On the other hand, in your class of 12 3-4 year olds, half or more may indeed fit in what was once that "not ready" category. Studio owners may find themselves going back and forth between dismissing wiggly dancers or retaining students to stay afloat. Though the decision may be easy for some, other may be struggling with how to fill their classes and retain students, especially early learners!

What if we flip this problem on its head? What if, instead of looking outward at the students (out of our control), we look at our instructional methods and lesson plans (totally, 100%, within our control!!) What if we created fun and engaging lessons and activities that are developmentally appropriate for our students to supplement our currently syllabus or curriculum? Better yet, what if we align some of these engaging lessons with our syllabus?

I know, I know. Some of you have been teaching the same lessons for 25 years. It feels impossible to change. If you are filling your classes with and retaining dancers who LOVE coming to your classes each week, then obviously you don't need to change! Kudos! If you're looking to amp up your early childhood dance classes, the rest of this post is for you!

We all want to help our kiddos increase their dance and approach to learning skills. I'm sure many of you may feel that changing the way we teach is not the answer to helping our little dancers increase their attention span. Think of it this way. If the dance journey we want for our students is a train line and we want our students to make it to the end of the line with us, we have to make sure we pick them up at whatever station they're starting at. Meeting kids where their skills are at in their early years ensures they can hop on the train with us and progress along the track. Keeping students engaged and highlighting their growth while they're on the train also decreases the likelihood they will get off the train before it reaches the end. If we don't meet them where they're at, they never have the opportunity to get on the train in the first place!

If the dance journey we want for our students is a train line and we want our students to make it to the end with us, we have to make sure we pick them up at whatever station they're starting at. Meeting kids where their skills are in their early years ensures they can hop on the train with us and progress along the track.

There are a few simple changes you can make to your current plans and instruction to help your early learners stay engaged in class. It's also important to acknowledge that changing the way we teach isn't easy and setting up new expectations and routines in our studios takes time, BUT being a studio owner means that one of your main character traits is perseverance! With that, let's dive into some of the ways you can elevate your early childhood dance classes.

BUILD A ROUTINE

It's first because it's important. VERY important. The brain thrives on predictability and routine and this is especially true for early learners. When your students have to think less about what might be coming next, it frees up brain space to focus on learning new concepts! Your class should feel like an imaginary checklist that dancers can check off in their head!

If you want a real "checklist," visually posting your class schedule is best practice in any early childhood learning environment! Another thing we know about early learners is they process visual information more quickly and completely than auditory information. If you have dancers that constantly question what is next or when class will be over or when they next time they'll get to do xyz is, a visual schedule may be for you!

Having a consistent schedule certainly doesn't mean you can't have a different day here and there! For typically developing 4+ year old children, adjusting to changes in routine is a learning standard. However, if you are worried some of your students won't adjust we'll to a routine change, warn them ahead of time, when possible. If you're using a visual schedule, make sure it reflect the routine change!

SET RULES AND REVIEW THEM

Just like a school classroom, your dance class has rules. Be sure to review what the big rules at dance class are and remind dancers of the rules often. When the season first starts, we review the rules at the beginning of class and at the end of class in a reflection like quick think. For example, at the end of class, I might ask the dancers to close their eyes and give me a thumbs up if they stayed on their spot during class. I review rules at the beginning and end of class Every. Single. Week. from the start of our season in September probably until mid November! It's my goal to give my students the best chance at success, and being proactive with reminders really helps!

KNOW YOUR STUDENTS

Before you can determine which of the concepts that follow would work best for your clientele, you must know your students/classes. Teacher sensitivity, or a teacher's ability to know and adjust to their students needs, is built over time and is essential to building a successful class structure. Use what you know about your students to meet them where they're at so you can propel them forward.

KEEP IT POSITIVE

Children (really, all humans) are like bank accounts (hear me out). Think of positive feedback as deposits, and negative feedback as withdrawals. Now, we know the nature of teaching dance is to provide constructive feedback to help dancers grow. Though we, and hopefully our students, know our constructive feedback is always coming from a place of care and love for our students, it is still emotionally expensive, no matter how many times we talk about the importance of feedback and mental toughness. Be sure we are filling our dancers "accounts" with genuine positive "deposits" so we don't overdraw their "account." This definitely applies to little dancers but is HUGE for our older dancers as well.

Think of positive feedback as deposits, and negative feedback as withdrawals. Now, we know the nature of teaching dance is to provide constructive feedback to help dancers grow. Though we, and hopefully our students, know our constructive feedback is always coming from a place of care and love for our students, it's is still emotionally expensive, no matter how many times we talk about the importance of feedback and mental toughness. Be sure we are filling our dancers "accounts" with genuine positive "deposits" so we don't overdraw their "account."

READ THE ROOM AND KEEP IT MOVING

Make sure the length of each component of your lesson is appropriate for your classes!

It's important to teach skills and concepts completely, but there is a give and take in early childhood. This can be tricky because this will be different between classes, not just between age groups. Your Monday preschool class may be able to handle 15 minutes of learning a new combo. Your Wednesday preschool class may begin to fade after doing the first step of the combo with music once. Knowing which classes are which and responding appropriately is the key. Your lesson plan for a wiggly class will need to include many more activities for shorter periods of time than a class that is generally regulated and engaged. Slowly increase the time spent on less engaging lesson components to help learners increase their attention span for less preferred activities.

UTILIZE AND TRAIN YOUR ASSISTANTS

This will be its own blog post someday soon. Assistants are HIGHLY important in an early childhood class for SO many reasons, but for the sake of keeping this post moving, I will pick two.

Our early learners can be unpredictable. They have big feelings and it's still developmentally appropriate for them to need a regulation partner when their feelings become too much. It's also just not possible for an early childhood dance teacher to stop class to be one on one with a student. Downtime is the enemy of engagement in early childhood! When a student seems like they may have a hard time, placing an assistant near their spot, even holding their hand, reassuring them may be enough to keep them regulated and dancing. Assistants have the ability to create trusting relationships with dancers who may be particularly shy, unsure or overly energetic. Sometimes all these dancers need is someone to be their trusted person.

Down time is the enemy of engagement in early childhood!

Assistants are also great to keep class moving! Again, down time is the enemy in any setting with early learners. Ensuring that the components of your class are layered and prepped for seamless transitions is essential in maintaining student engagement. This may be as simple as making sure the stamp and stamp pad are ready to go as you are finishing up instruction or taking attendance as you go over the plan for the day with your students. It may look like your assistant laying out equipment needed for the next activity while you are reviewing a combination with the dancers. However you can utilize your assistant to keep little dancers from having to wait, DO IT!

For any of this to work, you MUST train your assistants and lay out clear and detailed expectations from the start. With consistency in instruction, successful assistants will begin to anticipate what is needed so your class can run like a well oiled, engaging dance machine.

BUILD "BREAK" ACTIVITES AROUND CORE INSTRUCTION

Our early learner's brains grow when they learn hard things! Giving their brains a little rest between core instruction or learning more difficult concepts gives them a little reset so their brain is ready for more on the other side! A brain break is a short activity that aims to reset the brain after its worked hard. Brain breaks typically include large motor movements to help kiddos get back on the right track. Freeze dance, a quick stretch, a short game, or just shaking wiggles out for a few seconds are all quick ways to re-engage young learners when time is of the essence. How many, the type, the length and the timing of activities will, as always, depend on the class.

ALWAYS HAVE SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITIES IN YOUR BACK POCKET

There are just days sometimes that our plans don't take quiet as long as we had hoped they would and we're left with an awkward 7 minutes left in class. Always be sure to have activities planned for a "rainy day" that are no prep and easy to just pull out when they're needed!

Our staff has a shared electronic resource folder where we drop activity ideas! This really helps grow our toolbox of activities as well as encourages collaboration between staff members!

USE EQUIPMENT (SURPRISE BAG!)

Early learners are more engaged when learning can be manipulative! Using a balance beam, trampoline, scarves, egg shakers and other tangible objects in your dance class can be a great way to not only increase engagement, but build routine!

In my early childhood classes, we always end the class with the surprise bag. I put something manipulative in nature in the bag. I shake it, sometimes I let each dancer feel the bag. Dancers guess what is in the bag, then we dump it out! Each object I use is directly tied to a concept in our curriculum and the whole process takes less than 5 minutes. It keeps my students motivated to keep working snd follow our rules so we have time for surprise bag!

Using equipment on "different days" can also be fun for dancers! Setting poly spots, a trampoline, a balance beam, balance pods to make an obstacle course is a great way for students to practice locomotor skills in a different and engaging way!

This is certainly not an all inclusive list and we know different things work for different studios and dancers. But I hope, if nothing else, this post inspired you to think a little deeper into your classes for your tiniest dancers to increase success for yourself and your students.

If you're ready to change the way you reach your early learners, I listed much of the equipment I use in my classes below with my Amazon affiliate commissioned link to get you started!

For more information on my surprise bag routine, comment "SURPRISE BAG" below!

For visual schedule cards and sample class schedules, comment "SCHEDULE" below!