I love dance. I love teaching. And I LOVE my students! As I pulled this lesson out to put it up on the blog, this valentine from last year fell out. Happy smiles! 🙂
Anyway…today’s lesson plan is all about Valentine’s day. I love holiday activities, because I can do them as a special day with almost all ages I teach! I made a simple lesson with “conversation hearts” (get the printable) that I put up on the walls. The students pick one heart, and the older ones get to guess what dance activity it’s linked to, then we do the associated activity. Simple, but so fun!
Usually on holidays I’ll bring a few treats (stickers, bouncy balls, small candies, etc.) and students can earn a treat if they have especially good behavior, perform a skill the best I have ever seen, or remember a sequence without help from me. However, that’s only for ages 5 and up. Anyone younger gets stuck in the “it’s not fair” stage and can’t function unless they’re first to get a prize. Anyway, here are the hearts:
This is our warm-up heart. We follow our regular warm-up routine for the class once someone picks this heart (follow the leader, mirroring, circle time, Zumba style, etc.). This often means that the warm-up is not first in class. 🙂
For my preschool dancers, I ask the students to create their own solo. It should go from one side of the room to the other and it has to have at least one jump (leap, spin, etc.). I play music and ask them to practice. Then, they perform for each other.
For older students, we’ll do jazz isolations, only moving ONE body part at a time. OR, we might create solos with a few more parameters (i.e. Your solo must start and end with a frozen shape and have at least one jump and one balancing shape), depending on the class.
Chasse means to chase. One foot chases the other. So, let’s do chasses! Forward, sideways, in a circle, etc.
Ballet barre work. Depending on the class that may be my 1, 2, 3, look at me ballet positions rhyme, a regular ballet barre class portion, jazz/modern foot articulation series, a barre stretch, or monkey dancing under the barre (for the 2 year olds).
