The Dance of the Butterfly-A Handmade Childhood

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Dance of the Butterfly

I’ve mentioned before that our girl was born with dance in her soul…and arms, and legs, and hips (wow!), and feet…! She dances everyday…everywhere…all the time. (Today I finally just left her dancing in front of the mirror after the “getting out of pajamas and into clothing” was just taking too long.) While she is not in formal classes right now we make time for “dance” practice quite regularly.

Can I just take a moment to mention how grateful I am for the internet, the library, and good ole’ mother’s intuition. They have made it possible for this non-dancing mama (I can dance a mean groove to Abba with my littles…I just don’t actually know anything about dance!) to teach, encourage, and inspire my little dancer. I look forward to seeing what will blossom under formal instruction.

But for right now…I get to have all of this to myself…which is wonderful!!!

For those of you who might be wondering…

When we “dance” we do a combination of lots of things that include:

Matching our movements to the music
Acting out stories (I narrate she dances)
Dancing emotions (angry dance, happy dance, sad dance, etc)
Ballet positions
Animal dancing (dancing like a frog, dear, butterfly!, etc)

And lots and lots of free dancing to many different music styles.

Any comments and suggestions to enhance our “training!!” would be very welcome!!!

Comments (9)

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Emilie Adams · 788 weeks ago

First, just wanted to say that I've been a big fan of yours for a couple of months now. I found your blog through your rhythm of home articles, and I've checked it daily since for inspiration.

Second, you look like a great dance instructor! My girls (1yr and 3 yrs) have a similar training regime. As a former 2yr+ old dance student I know for a fact, that at that age formal instruction doesn't teach any more than that. =) Here's a couple other ideas:

Stretching is an integral part of dance so we also do lots of ballerina stretches. Especially helpful with kids is to practice pointing the toes, flexing the toes, having one foot point w/ the other flexed and then switch, etc. It helps put the pointed to into muscle memory.

One routine song. We have one song that we play every time. They choreographed it, and remember what moves go where. It's a good excersise in routine memorization and it's fun to see what they come up with...like "now run and try to bite mom's bum."

Good luck! Thanks again for having a blog that is a beautiful spot in my life!

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Kelly · 788 weeks ago

It sounds like you are doing a great job! What fun.

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Joy · 788 weeks ago

That's great! I love all the dances you have. My daughter's (arts-based charter) school incorporates dance into alot of what they learn, especially in the younger grades. I remember her dancing like a spring worm sliding through the mud and dancing like a flower pushing it's way out of the earth. Too cute!

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valorie · 788 weeks ago

you can also use some silk squares to hold onto and they can float up and down like wings too,when i taught creative movement that was always a favorite time when the scarves came out.
you can dance shapes too round dance square dance pointy dance.
and you can change what the animals speeds are bear fast bear slow bear silly
sounds like a fun time though, and that is the most important that it remains fun :)

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1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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HRobinson 52p · 788 weeks ago

Awesome ideas.� Thank you!�

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Karen · 788 weeks ago

Sounds like you are off to a great start! She is so adorable!

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Anna E · 788 weeks ago

I have no suggestions but thank you so much for this post and the comments! I am fascinated by the idea of teaching dance to tinies- my boy loves to dance and we dance together but I hadn't ever thought of how I could actually teach him new stuff. I'm thinking about how I can use a similar approach to teaching him music when he's a little older ( I think he needs to at least hit two before I try)

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knittymama · 788 weeks ago

Such fun! I was dancing with my boys tonight before bed:-)

I teach music and do a lot of dance with my preschoolers. One of my favorite things is to teach them a simple song or rhyme (just four or eight lines) and ask them to make up moves to go with the words. I also like to focus on both gross motor skills as well as small motor skills; it really helps them get to know what their bodies can do. Oh, and just helping them find and feel the beat. We play around a lot with that. Dance is such fun. It's one of the reasons I love teaching the younger ones music! Sounds like you're doing an awesome job!

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Jennifer · 788 weeks ago

You are really doing a great job! Here are a few more ideas to incorporate into what you are already doing. Exploring space in terms of levels (low-middle-high), directions forward, backward, sideways, diagnol, moving through space directly or indirectly. Exploring movement qualities, for example pretending to move through peanut butter versus floating like a balloon. Most children also love freeze dance. Another activity that I love for helping to children learn about/ develop rhythm is to let them run around to get their heart rate going. Then have them settle down, close their eyes and help them to find their heart beat. Ask them to move a body part to the same rhythm like foot, finger arm. Once they get that you can ask them move other body parts and eventually turn it into their own dance. Hope this helps.

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