Preschool Dance Steps Your Kids Can Do At Home
Fun Ways for Our Dancers to Practice at Home!
Since we can’t be in the studio right now, we at Nan’s Dance wanted to give you and your 2.5 to five-year-old dancer some easy steps so you can share the love of dance with your preschooler at home. The moves are an easy way to continue their dance education and only take a few minutes to do. It’s a strange time right now for all our children, so hopefully focusing on these dance moves will help keep things a little more normal for your child while giving them something fun to work on.
Ballet First Position
You can practice a few ballet-related moves with your preschooler starting with the first position and adding in some skipping later on. Ballet has many positions and our youngest dancers learn the first position early on. In the first position, your heels are together and your toes are apart, creating a triangle between your toes with the top point of it between the heels touching. You start the move with your toes together and then they say “Goodbye” to each other, and separate to be angled apart to make the triangle shape. You then bring your toes back together to “kiss” and then make them say “Goodbye” again to go right back into the first position. Be flexible, your dancer is young and if they cannot turn out their toes completely, that’s okay! We will keep working on it once we return to class. The movement of angling their toes away is still good practice even if it is not a hundred percent perfect.
Time to Skip!
Words really help cue the dancers to connect with their bodies. Saying “step hop, step hop, step hop” is a great reminder while they are trying to do a skip. It’s great for them to have their hands on their hips, especially if they are starting to master this step. (See the video below for visuals on all these moves).
You can take it slowly, they don’t need to do it very fast. If they are still learning how to skip, it is a great idea to hold their hand as they do it and do it with them. If they are not quite there yet, take a step back, and you can work on just hopping!
Shuffle and Tap
If your dancer is taking a combo class and they are also learning tap, there are some easy steps you can add in, starting with a shuffle. If you don’t have tap shoes, just wear your tennis shoes! The shuffle step is just two sounds as you swipe your foot across the ground. You start with raising one foot behind and swinging it back across the floor and then raising it up in front of you and placing it back on the ground.
Some smaller dancers may not reach the floor when swinging their foot up and back, so work with them on connecting to the floor. Make sure the foot hits the floor two times during this step. Remind them to keep their foot behind them when they start and use only the top part of the foot when connecting to the floor when they are mid-swing on the way up to kicking it out in front of them. Tell them it’s like kicking a ball forward and then bringing your leg back.
Lastly, you can always work with your dancer on rhythm. You can clap to the beat of different songs. Start out slowly and then you can go faster as they catch the beat of a more upbeat song. If they master this, then add in patting your knees and then clapping every other beat and make it a little more challenging.
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 here in the studio!
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.