Preschool Dance Movement Cards

Preschool Dance Movement Cards are a fabulous addition to your Preschool Dance classes.  There are so many different ways you can use them and they are a great, low-cost way to add a touch of seasonal flavor to your classes. Depending on how you use them, you may like to print out your movement cards and laminate them or you can even just use them on your phone or Ipad.  This is great, as it means you always have an extra trick up your sleeve.

Preschool Dance Movement Cards – how to use.

1. Guess the card – this activity is always a HUGE hit with my classes.  Start by looking at each of the cards you will be using and practicing the movement as you go. If you are doing a themed class, this is a great time to reinforce your theme.  Then, turn the cards over, ‘shut your eyes’ and draw a card showing it to the class.  When you open your eyes, you have to guess what the movement is. Guaranteed Giggles Galore!
2. Simon Says – Using the cards as a twist on Simon Says is great for a little brain break activity
3. Freeze Game – yes there is more to Preschool Dance than then Freeze Game but it IS very versatile. Using your Preschool Dance Movement Cards as part of the Freeze Game is a fantastic way to bring your theme into your lesson plan.
4. Dance sequences – Lay the cards out in a specific order and each time you clap it is time to swap to a different movement.  For your older classes experiment with turning the cards over after you have examined them and see how many movements the class can remember.  Keep in mind that in Preschool working memory is limited so give lots of clues and keep it fun.
5. Make a circuit – Lay the cards out in a circuit like the one shown below. Vary the locomotion and perform the movement on the card as you reach each station.

Preschool Dance Movement Cards are a great way to add some variety to your Preschool Dance classes.  They are a wonderful way to incorporate themes into your classes and to reinforce concepts.  To download your free Spring and Fall-themed Preschool Dance Movement Cards just enter your email below.

These Preschool Dance Movement Cards are based on the bestselling downloadable Preschool Ballet Curriculum – the Preschool Ballet Blueprint.  The Blueprint saves you hours upon hours of work giving you a click-and-go guide of what to teach when and how. Trusted by studios worldwide, the Preschool Ballet Blueprint gives you the confidence that their first steps in dance will be the right ones.

Pre-Ballet lesson plan – free download

I was chatting with one of my former students Sarah, the other day and she was telling me that she had just been employed to teach Pre-Ballet classes.  Sympathetically, I listened as she told me a now-familiar tale.  Sarah told me how excited she had been for the first class and how much planning and preparation she had done and then…. how TERRIBLY the whole thing had gone.  She had experienced the whole enchilada, crying children, children running wildly around the room, the tiny dancers not being able to follow what Sarah was trying to teach them…she was frazzled, upset and had no idea what to do! My student Sarah is a beautiful dancer and had assisted me for many years with school-aged classes.  BUT as any Pre-Ballet teacher will tell you, Preschool dance classes are a WHOLE different kettle of fish.  It can at times seem like it has more in common with herding kittens than teaching dance.

How can a Pre-Ballet lesson plan help?

Sure it can be hectic but, it absolutely doesn’t have to be that way.  With a well-designed Pre-Ballet lesson plan, everything is possible. I sent Sarah a link to the Preschool Ballet Blueprint along with a copy of the Mini Pre-Ballet lesson plan available to download below. Wishing her luck, I told her I’d give her a call after her next class.  The Sarah I spoke to that next week was thrilled and excited at how well it had all gone.  Give a girl the right Pre-Ballet lesson plan and she can conquer the world!   A solid Pre-Ballet lesson plan, showing what to teach, and most importantly how to teach is a game changer!

Pre-Ballet – the fundamentals

Teaching Pre-Ballet is totally different from teaching school-age classes, but there are some fundamentals.  These are absolutely KEY to ensuring that your Pre-Ballet classes are not only calm, organized, and enjoyable but also pedagogically sound.  Simple things such as:

• Studio organisation
• How students enter the room
• The use of place markers
• How to implement class phases
• Which props to use
• What to teach, when, and how.

These are the hallmarks of an effective Pre-Ballet lesson plan. To get started, try out his min Pre-Ballet class plan which is designed as a basic first class and will give you a good overview of how to structure your class.  If you are ready you can check out the full Preschool Ballet Blueprint over here.

You may also like these Pre-Ballet articles

5 tools every Preschool Dance Teacher Needs

5 tips for a successful Preschool Ballet Class

Growth Mindset Phrases for your Dancers

One of the key concepts in promoting a Growth Mindset in your dancers is to Praise the Process, not the Person. This is based on Carol Dweck’s research into Mindset where she found that after being praised for effort children were much more likely to seek out more challenging experiences and start to operate outside their comfort zone. In contrast, when they were praised for their natural ability they tended to shy away from further challenges.  This has HUGE ramifications for dance.

How many times have you heard, and most likely said something like. “Oh look at your lovely feet,” or “She’s got a wonderful facility for dance,” or “He is a natural turner”.   We grew up knowing that such and such had amazing feet or such and such had a super flexy back.  The whole dance industry is geared towards the rewarding of facility.  But wait, I hear you ask! What about all that operating outside of their comfort zone stuff? Isn’t that the kind of dancer that we want to create?  The kind that doesn’t fear failure but actually redefines it as a stepping stone to success.  The kind who is inspired by and not jealous of other dancers, the kind who will keep chipping away bit by bit until they reach their goals.  It sure is!  And the first simple step to creating this kind of dancer is to start using Growth Mindset phrases for dancers.

How can we implement Growth Mindset into our teaching?

But how exactly can we as dance teachers, with our busy schedule and constant demands, help our dancers develop a growth mindset.  You can read more about different tactics in this article on How to Praise your Dancers for Success. However, if you are like me, you want to get started with this growth mindset thing right away.  As luck would have it, there are some super simple things that you can do right now to start developing a growth mindset in your dancers. And it starts with just rephrasing your praise so that you are using growth mindset phrases for your dancers.  These phrases help us start to place more emphasis on praising the process rather than the person.   Try to choose words that emphasize or recognize effort such as:

5 Great Growth Mindset phrases for your dancers

• “All your hard work is paying off”
• “I can see how hard you were thinking about that correction we were talking about”
• “Remember how hard we found this when we first started learning it? I am so proud of your persistence”
• “I can see how hard you have been practicing”
• “Well done for taking on a challenge”

You can download these free downloadable Growth Mindset reward cards for dancers by entering your email below.  Print them out as many times as your like. You can use these to further emphasize effort over the person.

If you are ready to learn more about Growth Mindset for Dancers, check out some of the resources over in our store.

Please enjoy this free Mother’s Day Coloring sheet to enjoy with your young dancers.  Just enter your email below

If you are looking for more activities for your Preschool and School-aged dancers check out some of our activity packs below

How to achieve dance goals

If you ask any competitive dancer they will be able to tell you at least ten things they think they could improve.  Dancers are good like that.  At a young age, they have a remarkable grasp of what they are good at and where there are areas for improvement. However, saying that you need to improve something and actually having the tools to make that happen are two very different things.  Learning how to achieve dance goals is a specific skill. Just like any other skill it needs to be learned, applied, and scaffolded.

Why are SMART goals important?

There is a brilliant and comprehensive Goal setting for Dancers pack available over in the Resources for dance teachers store, but if you are looking for something to get started with, please enjoy the free Goal Setting for Dancers printable below.  It shows dancers how to achieve dance goals, demonstrating each step from the brainstorming process right through to setting specific goals for each week.  It is based on the principle of SMART goals, that is, goals need to be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based.  

SMART goals and dance

For dancers, this means that saying something vague like “I want to be more flexible’ is unlikely to lead to success.  This Goal setting for dancers printable encourages dancers to be much more specific with their goals.  A more specific goal might be something like, “I want to get my left leg splits.”  From there, it is important to set a deadline.  No goal was ever achieved just by wishing it.  We all know that there is nothing like a deadline to increase motivation and when it comes to how to achieve dance goals, the situation is no different.  If you know that you have set yourself a goal to achieve in 4 weeks, you are much less likely to miss a practice session.

To get started on guided Goal setting for Dancers and learn how to achieve dance goals, please download this free printable by entering your email below. If you are ready to take the next step and start accessing the kinds of performance psychology that Olympians like Michael Phelps used to perform at elite levels, check out the Success Mindset Pack for dancers.

If you are interested in learning more about Growth Mindset and Dance, check out these articles

How to succeed at dance competitions

Dancer Success and Growth Mindset

Dancing with a growth mindset, how to set dance goals

3 side-stage mistakes and how to avoid them

As dance teachers, we spend hours in the studio trying to perfect our dancer’s technique and bring out their very best performance.  We keep them calm backstage but once they are just about to go on, have we given them all the skills they need to really smash their performance? Those final moments before a dancer sets foot on stage can make or break their performance.  Hours of work in the studio can be undone, just in that few moments before a dancer steps out to perform!  What else can we do to help them during this crucial time? What can we do to help them avoid making common side-stage mistakes?

Why is side-stage such a big deal?

The last few moments before a dancer takes the stage are sometimes the hardest for them to deal with.  There are so many different feelings, emotions, and inputs to process and it is easy for a dancer to become overwhelmed.  As these are the last few moments before they step on stage, becoming overwhelmed at this stage can have a huge impact on performance. There are 3 common side-stage mistakes, nerves, the side-stage psych-out, and the on-stage psych-out.

Nerves

Just before a dancer takes the stage, nerves can really take over.  They know that it is make or break time, that there is no turning back.  How they deal with those nerves in that moment has a fundamental impact on their performance.  It is really important for dancers to learn strategies to overcome nerves and to build side-stage routines to keep them in the right frame of mind. It is important for dancers to learn how to deal with negative and anxious thoughts that creep in at the last moment, but once they have mastered this skill they will be able to overcome the negative impact of nerves.  For example, Michael Phelps likes to visualize any scenario and work out a solution.  That way he feels prepared for anything that might happen.  There is a full unit on this kind of visualization in the Success Mindset for Dancers Pack.

The side-stage psych out

Dancers deal with nerves in different ways and one very common one is the side stage psych-out.  Other dancers doing last-minute practices of their routine can totally psych your dancer out.  Imagine they are struggling with their turns and then moments before they go on stage, the dancer that is after them executes a series of flawless turns.  This kind of thing happens ALL the time so knowing how to deal with it is key

The on-stage psych out

It isn’t just other competitors side-stage that can psych your dancer out, it is also the dancer on before them. Standing side stage and watching an amazing dancer can rock the confidence of even the most prepared dancer.

The good news is that there are strategies to deal with this and they are all about mindset and creating a strong side-stage routine.  With the right mindset, dancers can learn to NOT  be negatively impacted by nerves and also to USE them to their advantage.  Dancers need to learn to know when they are nervous and use self-talk to combat nervous thoughts.  Focus and goal setting is also key. When dancers have clear goals they are better able to be ‘in the moment’ and to use laser focus to develop a side stage routine that minimizes the impact of other dancers.

The Success Mindset for Dancers pack was developed to help dancers create winning side-stage routines by helping dancers to unpack nerves, fears, and anxiety so that they can actually be used to help dancers consistently hit their routines.  From there, dancers learn how to connect their intentions with their actions and develop a laser focussed routine that will overcome even the worst case of the psych-out.  Once your dancer starts using mindset tools to improve their performance you will wonder how you ever managed without them.  You can learn more about the Journal here.

Who else wants a done for you Preschool Easter Dance class plan?

Easter is nearly here and time is running out to design and advertise special Easter-themed classes.  Relax!  That’s where our click and go class plans and activity packs come in.  Just take a few moments to download and you are good to go. The Preschool Easter Dance Class Plan includes playlist, coloring and activity sheets, fully choreographed exercises plus circuits, games, and activities.  All you have to do is download and teach.  These tried and tested class plans are based on the bestselling Preschool Ballet Blueprint, the downloadable Preschool curriculum that is currently being used worldwide to deliver super popular preschool Programs. 

The Preschool Easter Dance Class Plan includes a range of sequenced exercises from warm-up through stretching, basic ballet steps, and locomotion exercises all with a fun Easter theme.  Take your students on a fun-filled adventure where they will go on an Easter egg hunt, take part in an Easter Hat parade, experiment with rhythms, levels, speeds, directions, and work on fine and gross motor skills, jumping, hopping, skipping.  Watch them hop like a bunny, roll like an egg and pose like a flower.

The Preschool Easter Dance Class Plan takes care of marketing with a selection of social media graphics done for you plus an informative flyer that you can send to parents.  This not only helps cement the concepts covered in class but also builds parental engagement and trust.  Parents who love your program will spread the word! After the class give your students the coloring pages and activity sheets to further enhance their experience.  You can post samples of their work during the week or hang them up around the studio. Join the thousands of schools already enjoying these affordable and easy-to-use class plans designed in conjunction with qualified ballet teachers and childhood development professionals. 

This dance class plan is part of the Ballet Blueprint series, designed to give you the skills and knowledge to deliver a quality, pedagogically sound Preschool Dance program without huge outlays.  Regular preschool teachers don’t reinvent the wheel every time they step into a class.  They have set class plans that are well structured and predictable.  The Ballet Blueprint series is based on this concept and has been tried, tested, and tweaked so you can deliver your Preschool dance classes without chaos or stress.

Move beyond follow-along action songs and the freeze game to a curriculum that follows childhood development principles, is age-appropriate and is designed so that their first steps are the right ones.  You can learn more about the Blueprint series here and grab your Preschool Easter Dance Class Plan right here.

Unicorn Preschool Ballet class plan

Is there a Preschool Ballet student not obsessed with Unicorns? Unicorns are the Zeitgeist of our time but Unicorn themed songs for Preschoolers are a little harder to come by.  Never fear your Unicorn Preschool Ballet class plan is here! And if you teach 5-6-year-olds there is a version for them too.  This Unicorn Preschool Ballet class plan is based on the Ballet Blueprint series, the best-selling downloadable ballet curriculum which is currently used worldwide as a best practice pre-ballet curriculum.  It has been designed, tested, and tweaked so that you can download and hit the dance floor running.  Created with a firm foundation in fostering correct ballet technique around childhood development principles you can be confident that your Preschool program is pedagogically sound and that students will graduate primed to move into formal ballet training.  Studios rise and fall on their Preschool program and tapping into this revenue stream puts your studio on strong foundations.  However, finding a Preschool program that ticks all the boxes, that can be used by multiple instructors but which doesn’t cost a bomb or require expensive membership fees can be challenging.  The Ballet Blueprint series is tried and tested and a simple no-fuss option to build a quality Preschool Dance program that you can be proud of and rely on to actually prepare your youngest dancers for their formal training. If you want a class of superstar minis you need to get started early.

Vivian Brent  (Encore Performing Arts) – I was badly burned by a big name Preschool franchise.  I wish I’d just purchased this to start with.  It has everything I need.  I can provide each of my instructors with a copy and I can be confident  that my Preschool program will be well organised, uniform and something that the children really enjoy and benefit from.

Like all the Resources for Dance Teachers mini-class plans, the Unicorn Preschool Ballet class plan comes with a playlist, fully choreographed exercises that focus on fine and gross motor skill development, directions, levels, speed, and bucketloads of imaginative play.  The class plan also comes with a coloring page.  As a special bonus, there is also a Beginners Ballet version for your younger students aged 5-7.

You can learn more about the Ballet Blueprint series here and find more mini-class plans here and a whole range of fabulous coloring pages and ballet activities here.

To download your free Unicorn Preschool Ballet class plan with a bonus 5-7-year-old version just enter your email below.

St Patricks’ Day Preschool dance class plan

No more scrambling to find last-minute activities for St Patrick’s day – your pot of gold is right here!   Simply download and enjoy this free St Patrick’s Day Preschool Dance class plan complete with playlist, fully choreographed exercises, activities, place markers, and boy and girl St Patrick’s Day coloring pages.  This mini-class plan has everything you need to provide a fun St Patrick’s day themed dance class.  The exercises focus on levels, speed, tempo, sequencing, fine and gross motor skills, and bucket loads of FUN.  This Preschool Dance class plan is based on the best-selling downloadable ballet curriculum, the Ballet Blueprint series which takes you from Mommy & Me through Preschool and onto Beginners Ballet.  The  Blueprint is currently being used worldwide to deliver quality ballet instruction.  With extensive playlists,  clear class phases, and a fully choreographed syllabus, the Blueprint gives you everything you need to download and go.  It has been designed and tested to be pedagogically sound and works around milestones of childhood development so you can be assured that your program will enhance cognitive, physical, and social development.  The Blueprint also offers comprehensive strategies for behavioral expectations giving you the tools to deal with everything from separation anxiety to fostering a love of dance.  We all know how difficult it is to undo bad early training and with a focus on developing strong technique, the Blueprint ensures their first steps are the right ones.  Students trained wth the Blueprint commence formal training 18 months years ahead of their peers and it is an advantage that continues right through their training.   You can find out more about the Blueprint here.

The Blueprint has revolutionized my studio.  I finally have a well organised and popular Preschool Program that feeds seamlessly into my school aged program.  The difference in my junior school is amazing and I’m excited to see this new generation of students progress through the studio.  -Annie Moore (Ballet Director, Starz Academy)

To download your free St Patrick’s Day Preschool dance class plan, just enter your email below.

If you are looking for more resources for dance teaching, check out our Ballet Activity packs, Ballet Theory packs and Growth Mindset resources.

Dance class observation worksheet

We all know the drill, dancers need to sit out but we’d still like them to be doing something to enhance their learning.  Telling them to observe the class is fine but what is even better is ensuring that they still walk (or hobble) away as the case may be with some sort of learning experience under their belt.  This dance class observation worksheet helps turn those times when dancers have to sit out into valuable learning experiences.  In fact, it actually helps turn a negative into a positive. Sitting out and taking the time to really watch and learn from the class can really help give dancers a different perspective on a dance class.  It gives them a chance to think about their corrections, to process what other dancers are doing that looks good, and encourages them to think about how they might be able to incorporate all of this into their own dancing.  And if you are ever dealing with a serial sitter outer, this worksheet can really help turn this around or at the very least make sure that there is at least some learning and reflection going on.  

The Dance class observation worksheet is based on growth mindset theory.  In summary, growth mindset theory is based on the research of Carol Dweck. In Dweck’s research, she gave a group of children a basic IQ test. Half were praised for their good results by being told that they must be very smart, while the other half were praised because they must have tried very hard.  The group was then offered a second test.  They were told they could do the same test again or a harder one.  The group that was praised for their ability mostly chose the same test whilst the group that was praised for their effort chose the harder test. Furthermore, when given a third test of the same standard as the first, the ability group actually did worse than the effort group. The ability group, believed their success was due to something innate, something that they had no control over and therefore didn’t want to try something harder as they were afraid it would prove that they weren’t smart. The second group equated their success with effort and were therefore willing to try harder things as they were not afraid of failure and believed, that with effort, they could succeed at harder tasks    Dweck finds that individuals that believe that success comes from innate ability to operate with a fixed mindset whereas those that believe that success is based on hard work, learning, training, and doggedness are said to have a growth mindset.  Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a negative statement on their abilities, while growth mindset individuals don’t mind or fear failure as much because they realize their performance can be improved and learning comes from failure. This obviously has huge implications for dance.  As dance teachers we want our students to operate with a growth mindset, to want to try new, harder things without being afraid to fail.  Unfortunately, the dance world often tends to reward and praise students for the facility.  How often have you heard people talking about beautiful feet, dancers being praised for their natural flexibility, or being described as a natural turner.  This fixed mindset view of dancers can have huge repercussions for a dancer’s attitude to dance and their willingness to put in the effort and push themselves beyond their comfort zone.  If you would like to learn more about the growth mindset for dancers there are several packs that you can use to work through these concepts with your students. A word of warning though, once your studio starts to implement a growth mindset, the results are phenomenal, so get ready for your dancers to fly! Check out the Success Mindset and Goal Setting bundle here and the Correction pack for dancers here. The latest dancer correction pack which results in a huge shift in attitude and application of corrections is available here.

Feelings about and the ability to apply corrections is a huge part of growth mindset theory, so please enjoy this dance class observation worksheet with your dancers.