Pointes and Perspective #2 Reinventing the Wheel

Let's get right into today's discussion,

“Reinventing the Wheel”

Age Appropriate Skills, Keeping it Fresh

Where I will share some thoughts on Why it is Crucial that You Teach Age Appropriate Skills to your Preschool Students, and How to Keep those Skills Fresh in your Preschool Classes!

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Safe movements for young dancers are dependent on their ages and rate of physical growth. Growth plates in the skeleton, the growing tissues that help bones become strong, don’t reach full maturity until a child’s teen years. Growth plates are the softest and weakest sections of the child’s skeleton and are therefore vulnerable to injuries and fractures. Fractures occur as a result of repetitive stress on the bone, which is especially prevalent in children who are participating in sports and physical exercise.

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Way too often, dance teachers give inappropriate skills and steps to their preschool dance students! Perhaps they simply don’t know better. Perhaps they are bored of the same steps, and want to teach something new.

Teacher’s should not teach preschool students pique turns, full cobra stretches, complete turn out, intricate technique, and other exercises that they are not ready for. Children’s safety depends on it! Teachers should educate themselves and fully understand the various stages of motor development. These aspects should be considered carefully when designing class material for preschool students.

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It is imperative that younger children be given movement of sufficient simplicity.

For example, when teaching Jumps - sautes, echappes, saut de chats or grand jetes - A great amount of muscle force is generated, so teachers need to be aware of the potential to overtax the legs in these exercises.

When teaching chasses, (or galloping) and saute passes, (or hopping), these skills are asymmetrical, and children will use the dominant leg considerably sooner than the nondominant leg. Teachers should allow younger students to select their preferential leg, and should not pressure them to perform the task on both sides. Teachers can start to encourage use of either side in their older preschool students.

Skipping is a skill that will evolve anywhere between 4 and 7 years old. However, regardless of the amount of instruction and practice that they are given, only about half of all 5 year olds can skip. Forcing this skill will only discourage students. Start with pique passes (we call them flamingo walks) - as a great skill that will transition to skips when students are ready!

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Your preschool curriculum should include age appropriate skills. Avoid the risk of injury! And avoid frustrating students with skills they are not ready for. Frustrated students are not going to return. Retain your students in a class where they are safe and successful!

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Now you may ask, Heather, how on earth am I going to get through 36 weeks of dance classes, with the limited skills that are safe for my preschool students?! Reinvent the wheel, my friends!

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Stick with age appropriate material, know what skills are good for each stage of development, and then make it interesting! Change the dynamics, spacing, directions, and levels. Create combinations with other steps. Use a variety of props. Change the theme, characters, and imaginary space where the skills are done.

As accomplished dancers ourselves, we perform and practice the same steps over and over and we don't get tired of it! We do pirouettes in every class, but we are connecting it to different steps in different combinations, facing different directions, adding multiples, doing it in coupe front or back, or passe front or back, playing different characters, in different ballets! You must do the same for your preschool students' skills!

Reinvent your saute jumps. Hands on the shoulders, arms in first position, different counts, facing different walls, playing different characters, holding different props. Rotate the skill with other skills. Those of you who are parents know that, if you put the bin of legos away for a month, and then bring them back out, your children will be thrilled, as if they received new toys! Make the same old saute new! Reinvent the wheel!!