5 Things That You Can Do To Get Your Child Talking About Dance.
I am the proud mother of 3 boys. I cannot wait to see them at the end of each day and hear what they have done with their time. I am careful to ask specific questions such as, “What did you do at first break today?” or “Who did you play with today?”. So often I get shrugged shoulders and puzzled looks while my children engage in the here and now, asking questions about the spiders in the trees next to us or when we are going to be home for dinner. My middle child did dance all last year and would shrug when I asked him what he had done with Miss Emma that day. Of course, I knew exactly what he had done that day as I had written the lesson myself! But the 10am lesson was so long ago in my 4 year old’s mind that it was really no longer of relevance and the ‘here and now’ of being 4 was far more relevant.
So I thought I’d do up 5 ideas for how to get your child to talk about what they did in dance today. These questions don’t come with a guarantee, but they may help one parent and that is good enough for me!
This year we always warm-up to the song “Do It Now” by Mash’d n Kutcher. Download this song and see if your child will warm-up with you!
Ask your child what they wore in Dance today. We always give them the option of wearing a skirt, a super cape or their own special ‘dance’ clothes if they have chosen something special for dance that day.
Read through the techniques that we are studying this term and ask about specific steps. “Did you do any stamping in tap today? Can you show me?” or “Did you learn to do a forward roll today? Can you show me?”
We use LOADS of props in our classes. We have tunnels, parachutes, wands, rainbow ribbons, squishies, mats, taps for their shoes (in some centres), pom poms…too many to list exhaustively. Mention a few of these things and ask how they used them in dance. “Did you use the tunnel today in dance?” If it’s a no, they might offer things that they did use.
Did you play any games with your teacher today? We often ask children to imagine and play characters in dance. The Beach, Animals and Snakes are current themes.
