"I Love Dance
classes teach your
child to dance, not
just a dance.”

Class Descriptions

Download the I Love Dance! Registration form

All I Love Dance! classes are appropriate for both boys and girls. Age groups may be structured differently at your learning center depending on enrollment. All material in ILD!’s curriculum is age appropriate and modest in nature.

*Mature 2 yr. old’s who are potty-trained can be admitted into dance and or tumbling classes with the Director’s permission.

Creative Movement | 1 yr. Movement | Pre-Ballet (3&up) | Ballet (5&up) | Tumbling/Pre-Gymnastics (3&up)

Creative Movement

Creative movement focuses on exploring the elements of time space, and energy (force) and creating shapes through everyday and dance specific locomotor and nonlocomotor movements to gain movement competency. The aim of this dance form is to preserve the child’s spontaneity of movement while enhancing movement vocabulary and repertoire. Often times, activities during the creative movement class are child-centered. The dance form is age appropriate for preschool through elementary children. Creative movement has gained further support from educational theories such as multiple intelligences, integration, and brain research. I love Dance! offers creative movement to introduce young learners to dance and become a natural conduit to the study of ballet, modern dance, tap, and other dance forms.

Elements you will find in ILD’s creative movement classes:

Rules and etiquette parameters
Circle, personal, and general space
Group vs. individual activities
Warm-up, identification of body parts
Sitting bend and stretch
Point and flex feet
Standing in demi-plie
Battement tendu
Move and freeze in personal and general space
Levels- high, medium and low
Directions: forward, side, backward
Runs, gallops, jumps, hops, chasse, leap, skips

Creative movement sentence
Body shapes
Move quickly and slowly
Apply energy to movement: push, pull, wiggle, vibrate
Nonlocomotor bending stretches: curving, rotating
Free dance games with different types of movement
Run and lead dance games, mirror and partner games
Tempo, rhythm
Dimension: large and small
Body facing: front, side, back
Animal walks
Various props

1 year. Movement Class

While many parents are quite capable of teaching their little ones a few basic tumbling moves, most also agree that their kids can benefit from participating in organized tumbling classes/movement classes. Instruction for young children typically focuses on fun and socialization, rather than on form, but children who are enrolled in the 1 yr. Movement/Tot Tumbling classes are sure to begin to learn the proper way to perform a number of very basic gymnastic exercises, release desires to play and tumble, begin gaining flexibility and begin to explore moving creatively. This class has an assistant to help keep the little ones ‘on-task’ as much as possible. Tumbling mats, suede floor beam, octagon mat, props, creative movement elements/music, and a tunnel are used in this class. This unique class meets for 30 min. each week.* 1yr. old students will not participate in the winter recital or the Harlem Globetrotters game; however, they can make an optional appearance in the spring production. Your little one will need a costume for this event. Specifics TBA.

Pre-Ballet (ages 3 and 4)

Pre-Ballet uses some of the same traditional dance elements found in our creative movement classes. However, the focus of pre-ballet class is to introduce the structure of a ballet class, basic ballet etiquette and terminology, basic positions of the feet, posture and basic port de bras (carriage of the arms). Emphasis is placed on providing a proper ballet foundation to prepare the young dancer for a formal class while still having fun. Pre-ballet classes are less formal than a regular ballet class and incorporate props and variation for young attention span.

Ballet (ages 5 and up)

Our ballet classes build upon the foundation of pre-ballet classes and are more formal in structure. Use of the ballet barre is introduced as well as center and across the floor combinations. This class includes basic ballet history, memorization of combinations, development of body alignment, introduction of turn-out vs. parallel, turns and increasingly difficult ballet steps. At this age, the State and National Dance Standards for Dance Education are incorporated into each lesson.

For a list of these standards please follow the link below:
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/teach/standards.cfm

Tumbling/Pre-gymnastics (ages 3 and up)

Tumbling or pre-gymnastics offers boys and girls a chance to explore moving through the discipline of gymnastics. This class improves children’s flexibility, strength and body awareness. Fitness, rolling skills, bridging skills, and upright balance and locomotion are introduced with safety being the first priority. Small-scale gym equipment is used in each class including mats, a low balance beam, and an octagon-tumbler. Wedges and hula-hoops can also be used in class.

The curriculum wheel shown below is a model of gymnastics instruction that establishes a general direction for instruction (clockwise around the wheel - starting at Fitness), while allowing some freedom in actual skill selection (within each movement family "pie-slice"). The curriculum wheel is an attempt to be simultaneously tight and loose, to acknowledge an overall direction of instruction while incorporating individual learning paths. The Figure shows a curriculum wheel for tumbling.

Texts:

Jay, M. Danielle, Gayle Kassing. Dance Teaching Methods and Curriculum Design. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2003.

Grant, G. Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet Technique. New York: Dover, 1982.

Early Gymnastics Curriculum Wheel:
http://www2.usa-gymnastics.org/publications/technique/2002/9/earlygymnastics.html