Benefits of Young Children Dancing....

What a special week!! All of our special "Parent Informances" went off without a hitch!! Every single dancer gave their best performance and relished in their special moment in the spotlight when taking final bows and curtsies. Thanks to everyone in the Charlotte Mecklenburg region for your support of our theatre arts family. We have had an awesome year!!

As the weather heats up, we are looking ahead to summer. We have already started with our registrations and classes start next week June 6th. Check out some reasons to get your child in our award winning program!! Below are some of the benefits of young children involved in dance and the arts, taken from National Dance Education Organization (http://www.ndeo.org/).

-Children move naturally. They move to achieve mobility, they move to express a thought or feeling, and they move because it is joyful and feels wonderful.

• -Physical Development- Dance involves a greater range of motion, coordination, and strength than most other physical activities. Dance utilizes the entire body and is an excellent form of exercise for total body fitness. Young children are naturally active, but dance offers an avenue to expand movement possibilities and skills.
• -Emotional Maturity- Children enjoy the opportunity to express their emotions and become aware of themselves and others through creative movement. Movement within a class offers a structured outlet for physical release while gaining awareness and appreciation of oneself and others.
• Social Awareness- Children learn to communicate ideas to others through real and immediate mode of body movement. Children quickly learn to work in a group dynamic.
• Cognitive Development- Young children will create movement spontaneously when presented with movement ideas or problems that can be solved with a movement response. Movement provides the cognitive loop between the idea and the solutiion.

DANCE IS A POWERFUL ALLY FOR DEVELOPING MANY ATTRIBUTES OF A GROWING CHILD.


~ This post was submitted by Stephanie Wilson, Little People's Creative Workshop Charlotte/Mecklenburg Regional Director

National Dance Week.......

Spring has finally arrived in the Philly area and we could not be happier! This is always a great time of the school year for our dancers to start thinking about what they have been learning each week in class. We decided to celebrate National Dance Week by showing off for our classmates one thing we learned in dance class that we are most proud of! Our students showed off everything from backbends to tendus and passes and leaps to plies! Each student really thought hard about what they wanted to showcase as their "best" dance and they all did great! The parents will be getting a picture of their dancer showing off his/her "best" dance soon and I know everyone is very excited to see how the pictures turned out!!

Benefits of Dance in the Early Years.....

Physical Development 

• Moving safely, imaginatively and with confidence 

• Moving with bodily control, co-ordination, flexibility and balance 

• The development of spatial awareness 

• Dancing with props; developing manipulative skills 

• Experiencing a range of gross motor movements and fine motor movements 

• Keeping healthy - dance as part of a healthy lifestyle 

Creative Development 

• Communicating ideas, thoughts and feelings non-verbally through movement 

• Using the imagination to create ideas, characters and narratives 

• Making movement responses 

• Having an enjoyable, exciting and motivating time 

• Working individually, with a partner and as part of a group 

• Developing trust and co-operation 

• Selecting and using movement ideas independently and with others 

• Exploring feelings and views of self and others - including other cultures and beliefs 

• Accepting the moral code on which discipline and courtesy within the group is based 

• Interacting with a new social group 

Communication, Language and Literacy Development 

• The use of sounds, music, words, poems, rhymes, texts and stories as stimuli for, and 

   accompaniment to dance 

• The use of language to imagine and recreate roles and ideas in the dance 

• Interaction - negotiating plans and activities and developing conversational skills 

• Appreciation - talking about personal dance performance 

• Observation - talking about the dance performance of others 

• Developing a vocabulary of movement 

Needs of Little Ones.....

We have witnessed so very many dance classes over the many years of being in this industry.  You have the uninterested dance teachers that just want to 'get class over with'--and not the least bit interested in young children; treating their classes like some kind of sentence.  Then, you have the ones that think teaching 'Where is Thumpkin' and the 'Hokey Pokey' can actually count for dance instruction---they love the kids; but are teaching them zilch.  Then, there is the rigid, hard-core teacher that wants preschoolers to have perfect technique and stand at attention.  Then there is the misguided dance education majors that have been taught that preschoolers should be just fine and do nothing but walking and pausing for thirty minutes.  What a waste!

Young ones are capable and deserve so much more than this!  They crave eye contact, variety, challenges that are age appropriate, and passion for creativity!  Let's not waste this wonderful opportunity we have been given---to work with little ones.  We have a chance to make an investment for life!

Mind and Body Benefits of Dance for Children

ARTICLE 

Dance provides youth with mind and body benefits 

By Debra Strickland 

FamilyTalk Magazine, March/April Edition 2006 

  

Many different types of dance classes are available for children, from modern dance, 

ballet, tap and jazz to dance that celebrates unique ethnic and cultural traditions.  What’s 

the most important thing for parents to keep in mind when choosing a dance class?  It’s 

that research has proven that dance provides physical, developmental and artistic benefits 

to your child. 

Physical Benefits - Students build muscle strength while increasing flexibility.  Young 

dancers develop a sense of balance and improve agility and coordination.  Importantly, 

children also develop body awareness and learn correct posture. 

These benefits extend beyond a student’s involvement with dance, helping youth involved 

in other disciplines, such as sports and martial arts.  Studies have shown that physical 

activity helps children relieve stress and feel relaxed.  It also is a great way to help your 

child develop a positive lifelong attitude about staying active and healthy. 

Developmental Benefits - Dance classes are fun and a great way to meet new friends.  

Young dancers develop essential social skills through interaction with other students.  

Group choreography fosters teamwork, communication, trust and cooperation.  Dance 

also has been proven to nurture important life skills, such as discipline and focus.  

Dancers naturally display confidence, self-esteem and poise.  These skills are developed 

through participating in dance performances. 

Artistic Benefits – One of the greatest benefits of dance is that it sparks a child’s 

imagination and nurtures individual creativity in a unique way.  Dance classes share the 

joy of physical self-expression in a supportive and structured setting.  This can have a 

positive impact on children who have limited physical abilities, who act out or who have a 

difficult time sitting still.  Involving children in dance also teaches the basic elements of 

creative movement, such as time, space, rhythm and design. 

While people may not be as familiar with modern dance as with ballet or jazz, modern  

 dance in particular honors the creative spirit and celebrates the individual.  Modern dance 

does not simply conform to conventional movements, shapes and patterns.  Instead, it 

requires the young dancer to learn movement from the inside out, nurturing the body and 

focusing the mind.  This form of dance especially is welcoming to children of all shapes, 

sizes and genders. 

  

There is one final reason to get your child dancing.  Research proves there is a strong link 

between involvement in the arts and increased educational achievement.  In fact, one 

study showed that “students who participate in the arts are not only more likely to 

participate in a math and science fair, but also out-perform their peers on the SATs by 87 

points” (www.artsusa.org).  These educational benefits are gained by students regardless 

of their socioeconomic status.   

There’s sure to be a dance class that fits your child’s interests and your schedule, so why 

wait?  Enroll your child in a dance class.  The lessons she or he learns will last a lifetime. 

Debra Strickland is the executive director of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers, southwest 

Michigan’s only professional modern dance company.  Debra holds a Master of Public 

Administration degree from Western Michigan University and has been passionate about 

working in the arts and women’s issues for nearly a decade. 

Encouraging Words for Monday......

We all hear of the constant budget cuts and layoffs these days.  It is important to not get bogged down with all the negative---successful individuals choose to see the positive in the negative.  For our industry we see that dance and theatre classes are being cut out in public school systems because there are not the funds to hire the staff to teach these classes.  That is a shame for our young children.  BUT, it opens an avenue for independent business owners to offer their services to these schools and organizations.  We can independently contract with school systems to offer these much-needed classes at a much lower fee than the added staff member would generate.  School become excited that they can still offer these classes to their students and individual businesses grow due to the demand and increased business.  (Quite often causing businesses such as ours to have to hire additional staff to cover the classes that we are having to add to our schedule.)  Choose to see the opportunity that always exists in bad times or bad news.

Teachers Need to Also Be Students

As dance teachers of little ones it can become easy to lose focus of the need to also be a student.  We need to be a student of life---and definitely remain a dance student ourselves.  It is important to nourish our own souls and dance passion with classes and performances that keep our enthusiasm and art polished, and enabling us to pass on new inspiration to our young students.

A soul left unnourished will soon wither.  If you are an instructor of young ones be sure to invest in yourself so you can keep investing in your students.  Enjoy!

Benefits of Children's Dance Classes.......

Children--boys and girls--who dance when they are young enjoy increased self-esteem, coordination, balance, poise, and many more wonderful benefits!  Whether a child continues to dance or becomes a professional dancer is not the goal---the many benefits of participating in dance are causing parents to seek dance programs of excellence in which to invest.  Read this great article that we found on the benefits children that dance enjoy:

http://www.essortment.com/all/childrendancec_rczk.htm

Baby Ballerinas.....

Here is a wonderful article written for the National Dance Alliance:

Dance Teacher Profile.....

Dance teachers of young children really have to be multi-faceted.   They must be able to communicate effectively with adults and handle their concerns and questions; and then step into the classroom and be able to be a pumpkin in a patch with the students!  He or she must be energetic, enthusiastic, and extremely passionate about their art----if not, the energy of the class and excitement will not be present and little ones will soon lose interest.  Dance teachers need to be very animated with little ones.  Young children are experts at picking up on a teacher that does not really want to spend time with them.

Any program that offers dance or theatre arts classes to young children is only as good as its instructors and program design.  The teachers that are sent out to teach a program have to be phenomenal!  The programs who train their teachers well and only choose the best are the programs that are seeing great success in this volatile economy that we are experiencing.  Parents and students alike quickly pick up on the programs that are fluff.  Now, more than ever, parents are making sure that whatever they choose to spend money on is well worth it in every way.   We are seeing the mediocre programs quickly fall to the wayside----a great sifting, if you will, in the industry.  The silver lining to this is that the children's programs that stand for excellence and are time-tested have a clear path to take over when this happens.  (And that is what we are seeing presently.)  In children's dance programs the strong, quality programs are gaining great momentum and strides!  Great news for us who love what we do and do not compromise our standards in passing our love of dance and theatre to the next generation.