Dance For Kids

Miss. DeAnna will be offering dance classes for homeschoolers in Wake Forest. Students will be learning the basics of ballet and lyrical in a fun and encouraging class. The class will also learn a fun Christmas dance as well!

Classes will be held on Thursday afternoons in Wake Forest from 1 - 2 PM (near Super Target). The class begins on September 9th and continues through November 18th. Class is open to homeschool students. Tuition is $35/month/child. No additional fees!

For more information on the class, please email DeAnna Stojan at MissDeAnna@DanceForKidsNow.com or call (919) 996 - 9042.

To register for classes please visit, http://danceforkidsnow.com/form/form.html. (For school name, please put “homeschool“)

I am looking forward to dancing with your children this fall!

We hope your family has a wonderful Labor Day. If your child has Monday classes, please check your school’s bulletin board for the make up class time!

Since this week is the fifth week of the month (and a holiday weekend!), we are having a super duper dance time.

We are reviewing and playing dance games with the many dance steps we have been learning over the past several weeks. Our favorite dance game is the “FREEZE” dance with the ribbons. When the music stops we freeze in a dance position. When the music plays, we dance with the ribbons.

This week we are also dancing with the parachute (always a favorite dance activity!).

We are also tapping out some fun rhythms and making neat patterns with the rhythm sticks.

We hope that your family has a wonderful Labor Day weekend (and maybe even finds some time to rest!).

This week has been fabulous! Our theme was Goldilocks. We learned a special dance that told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (we have some very dramatic students!). This week students also learned 3rd position and excelled at balancing in 3rd position.

We hope your dancer had a lovely time dancing with us this week.

We are finishing up our review of dance steps this week by learning (or re-learning) 3rd position. Third position has the heel of one foot touching the inside/middle of the opposite leg. We pretend to ring our doorbell on the inside/middle of one leg and then the opposite foot runs home to answer the door. This is a tricky position for children because it does take allot of balance to master this. BUT we know that these talented children are up for the challenge!

Since we are working on balance this week, we are also working on our “freeze” positions (younger children simple two feet on the floor poses, older children more complex one foot on the floor poses). Children are being given bean bags and encouraged to balance the bean bag on various body parts (older children are being encouraged to not hold the bean bag!).

This week promises to be a fun week for all our students

This week we have two very different themes.

Our toddlers dance theme of the week was animals at the zoo. We were dancing to the zoo and while at the zoo we are dancing like tigers, monkeys, elephants, snakes, birds, and much more. We were also focusing on “tendue” where we slide our foot to the front, side, or back. We were working very hard on keeping our leg so straight while we did our tendue.

Our preschoolers dance theme of the week was all about “The Cat, the Rooster, and the Mouse” from Aesop’s Fables. The children enjoyed dancing out this story very much at the end of class. We also focused on our straight legs and focused on keeping our legs straight when we did our leaps. Children were also encouraged to keep their legs straight when jumping and off the ground (kinda tricky!).

Whichever age group your child is in, we hope he or she had a wonderful dance class!

This week our dancers are working on STRAIGHT legs

At the beginning of class children are being shown the difference between straight legs and bent legs. We do a warm up stretch with bent legs and then straight legs. Before we start dancing for the day, children are given pretend pencils that we tie to our legs so our legs will be straight all day. We are encouraging children to use their pencil legs when we are warming up our toes and legs in our circle. When we do our chasse children are being shown how to do the step with straight legs. And the big finale of the day is a huge leap with straight legs.

We are excited to see all these straight pencil legs!

“The dance lady is here, the dance lady is here. I get to dance today”. These are the sounds we hear when picking up children from their classroom to go to dance class. As we are walking to the dance space, the children are so happy to get to tell the dance lady their newest adventures. Once in the dance space, children love to get their wiggles out, learn new dance steps, dance with the bean bags, tap out a fun rhythm on the sticks, and dance the morning away.

Dance for Kids provides children with a fun and action packed dance classes at their daycare center or preschool.  Since your child is taking dance at school, your child has the opportunity to dance without sacrificing family time.

Dance for Kids classes are also offered in an environment that your child is already familiar with and with your child’s friends. Children learn best in familiar environments!

The best reason to register your child for Dance for Kids dance classes is simply because the classes are fun AND educational. Children learn the basics of ballet. Discover rhythm and how to keep beat. Explore movement and abstract concepts. Improve coordination and fine motor skills. All of this through games and activities - we play so hard we forget how much we are learning!

To register your child, please click here or visit: http://danceforkidsnow.com/form/form.html. We look forward to dancing with your child!

What a great week we have had!

The highlight of the week has been the parachute. We have practiced our chasses (jump to the side) with the parachute. As well as our battements (big kicks). The children have enjoyed watching the parachute make a mushroom in the air when we all kick at the same time.

We hope your child had a great dance class this week.

This week we are making sure that the children remember what we learned last week.

We are playing several dance games that reinforce our feet positions.  So far the children are smart and are remembering their feet positions (complete with “kissing” sounds for second position and “snoring” sounds for second positions!).

We are also incorporating our chasse step (to make our feet chase) and battememt (big kick) into a dance all about trains. We are even using ribbons for this fun dance!

We hope your child has (or had!) a wonderful time dancing with us this week.