Elementary Age Steps Your Kids Can Do At Home
Easy Ways for Our Dancers to Practice at Home!
We at Nan’s Dance wanted to give you and your elementary-aged dancer some easy steps to continue their dance education at home as everyone gets accustomed to all the other new things happening right now. It’s a hard time and hopefully focusing on these fun dance ideas will help keep things a little more normal for your child while giving them something fun to work on.
For our elementary-aged group, we are working on counting. How do we count music? We count to 8 with most songs. As our dancers may remember, we say: 5, 6, 7, 8… and then we start on one. Counts 5, 6, 7, and 8 are usually the last four counts of an introduction or the last musical phrase before the dancer joins in.
Count to 8!
Count out loud with your dancer up to 8. See if they can keep up with the rhythm of the music. Not all songs have the same tempo, so you might have to count fast or very slowly depending on the song.
Have your dancer work on their own choreography—at this age, kids are so creative and can come up with their own dances at home. Some of our dancers have already submitted pictures of them writing their steps down and that is excellent!
It can be any type of dance:
• Ballet
• Tap
• Jazz
• Hip Hop, or whatever they would like to do.
Let them choose their favorite song. It’s a good exercise to practice writing down steps and also to focus back on the rhythm and counting to the beat.
Add in some footwork
Talk to your dancer about their foot. Especially in ballet and jazz, there are three parts to the foot we use. Have your dancer show you where the toes are, have them point to their heel, then challenge them to point to the ball of their foot. (See the video below for visuals)
When going off the ground, we go heel, ball, toe, with the heel leading first. Down to the ground, it’s toe first, ball, then the heel. Pull back in with the ball of the foot and pull in with the heel. Work on how their foot connects to the ground. Make their toe point even better by encouraging them to really lift with the heel.
These are all great things to work on at home for this age group. We hope you find our videos helpful and we cannot wait to see you back in the classroom!
Don’t Forget to Register for Fall!
It’s not too early to register for our popular fall classes. From ballet to hip hop, we offer dance classes for ALL ages and skill levels in a variety of styles. We place students in classes that will challenge them while offering a fun atmosphere for learning and growth. We also offer Mommy & Me classes, (18 months – 2.5 years).
Fall Registration just opened. Register online or give us a call at 919-803-6044 to hold your spot! All classes start the week of August 17, 2020. It’s going to be a fantastic season for dance.