Dancing is a great activity for kids because it keeps them moving and can help them to get all of their energy out! Dance activities also keep their brains active. This doesn’t have to be a formal dance class; it can be anything that gets kids up and moving to music. Keeping kids moving is good for their health as statistics show that obesity affects more than 14 million children ages 2-19.
Dance activities have more benefits than just helping with their health. We’re going to take a look at some of those as well as how world song schools at Huron Village integrates music classes into the curriculum.
Benefits of Dance Activities for Kids
When your child is dancing, even just for fun, so many good things are happening that you may not even realize. Let’s check them out!
Encourages Creativity
Watch a child dance and see their creativity shine. They come up with moves that are so creative as they just let the music take them. As they get older, they may try to follow a beat. Whatever the case, they are being creative as they move and groove.
Helps Emotional Development
Whether it’s in your living room or a part of formal training, dancing is a great form of expression. When you allow kids to dance, you’re allowing them to be free and express themselves. Even children at a young age can benefit from this.
Teaches Kids How to Be Social
When kids dance as part of a class, they learn how to interact with other kids. This helps them develop social skills which can help them throughout their lives.
Helps with Cognitive Development
As you look at dance activities for kids, you may decide to try formal dance classes as well as some informal activities. For older children, dance classes can help with cognitive development as children learn self-discipline and even time management. Children learn how to be disciplined which can extend into other areas.
Dance Activity Ideas
Dance activities for kids have to be fun. Kids have a short attention span, so you have to keep things fun to keep them engaged.
For small children, many different age-appropriate games can be fun and entertaining. Here are just a few ideas, feel free to add your own.
Freeze Dance
This is a fun game. Play some music and tell kids to dance. When you stop the music everyone has to freeze. It may be hard for little ones, but it’s a fun game that will get everyone laughing. Freeze dance is a popular dalcroze eurythmics music class activity that children in our Huron Village location often get to take part in. Dalcroze is a playful approach to teaching and learning music. It is a process for awakening and developing musically through rhythmic movement.
Animal Dances
You can’t go wrong with kids and animals, so why not combine the two and ask them to create animal dances? How would an elephant dance? How about a monkey? Ask your children and see what they come up with. They’ll find something that will make them smile.
Balloon Dance
You can also combine balloon fun with dancing in this activity. Have kids dance while hitting a balloon in the air. The idea is to keep dancing and keep the balloon from hitting the ground. If the balloon falls before the music stops, they’re out of the game. The last one moving with the balloon in the air is the winner.
Painting Dance
This dance activity is a messy one, but still loads of fun! Since painting and dance are both expressive forms of art, you can combine the two. Using washable paints, let your child dip their feet in a bowl of paint and start dancing on a mat or large piece of paper. When the music stops, they’ve gotten some energy out and created a piece of art.
Music Classes at world song schools
Music and dance make up a large part of the curriculum at our world song schools center in Huron Village as well as our other franchises. With a name like Rock and Roll, how can it not?
We offer children music exploration where they get to try out different instruments. Preschool children even have the chance to practice their instruments as part of their daily routine.
Daily group music classes are all about fun as kids get to dance, shake, and play as they are introduced to different types of music. Every two months we introduce children to a new country which includes the music of that country. We believe this is a great way to incorporate learning about a new culture into the curriculum.
Fiddlefox Curriculum
Our sister company, Fiddlefox, develops new classroom materials every year to give kids a deeper understanding of music and offer them ways to develop hands-on lessons. All of these materials are created with the Montessori Method in mind, as are all of our lessons at our world song schools centers.
We also utilize illustrated songbooks, music recordings, and activity books based on our current cultural curriculum that Fiddlefox publishes. Everything works hand in hand to provide a well-rounded experience with music and dance for all of our Rock and Roll students. You can learn more about Fiddlefox here.
There are plenty of dance activities for kids to have fun with and to keep them busy. Keep it fun, keep it moving, and keep on dancing!
We want to know, what types of dance activities do your children do? Share with us in the comments section below.