Our "Frozen-Inspired" Dance Camp

Our most asked camp question since last December has been "Are you doing a Frozen Camp?"  So due to popular demand... a Frozen (inspired) Camp is what we did!

Our studio offers two types of camp: 5-day "Dance Camp" for ages 6-10 and 4-day "Princess Camp" for ages 4-7. For both camps, the students come each day for three hours from 9am - noon and we dance and do arts and crafts. Each year we do a different theme and base the week's lessons around that theme. We hold an impromptu little "show" on the last day of camp for family and friends.

I would say our approach to camp is very relaxed - focus on dance, crafts without a lot of theatrics / costumes - it works for us and leaves us with a lot of happy campers.

We did the Frozen (inspired) Camp for our Princess age group (ages 4-7) at the end of June, and we actually had to close off registration a week prior because of the demand!  (For comparison, our July Princess Camp was half as full as the Frozen Camp was).

I'm going to break up the posts into a few different sections, and hopefully they will give you some ideas for your own camp.
1) Music (this post)
2) Crafts 
3) Games & Activities 

General Camp Agenda 

8:50-9:05am - Parent Drop-off and Student Sign-in
9:05-9:30am - Warm-up and "Get to know you" activities - I like doing the Name Game as an icebreaker
9:30-10:00am - Ballet Dance class (learning choreography / technique)
10:00-10:45am - Craft Time
10:45-11:00am - Snack Time
11:00-11:40am - Tap class (learning choreography / technique)
11:40-12:00pm - Games / Cool-down

Dance Camp Playlist

All links open in iTunes - the Dance Buzz is an iTunes affiliate
I know you will all be surprised when I tell you that the most used album during our Frozen-Inspired Camp was... the Frozen album. Shocking, I know! But we also used a few other non-Frozen songs during our camp so that we (the teachers) didn't go crazy from having songs stuck our head all day!

Songs We Used for Choreography
Let It Go - Idina Menzel - for a ballet / lyrical
Love Is an Open Door - Kristen Bell - for jazz
For the First Time in Forever - for lyrical / sing along
In Summer - Josh Gad - for tap
Fixer Upper - Frozen - for tap

Songs We Used in Class (for creative movement, games, and technique)
Winter's Waltz - Frozen good for across the floor in ballet
Ice Dance - Edward Scissorhands - creative movement and free-dance
Let It Go / Vivaldi's Winter - The Piano Guys - good one for dramatic dancing, freeze dance
Waltz of the Snowflakes - The Nutcracker
Love Is an Open Door (Instrumental Karaoke version) - good for pass the beanbag, or warm-ups


What non-Frozen songs can you think of that would fit in well?

Dance Games, Part 1

Do your dancers ask to play games in dance class or request something "fun"?

As hard as I try to keep class engaging and entertaining, many of my recreational classes still ask for "games" to play.  Often, I will turn to creative movement exercises and label them as "games".  I also like to throw in some vocabulary builders.  If you're looking for some new ideas for dance games, here are some alternatives to Freeze Dance (although if you like Freeze Dance, here are a few these variations on Freeze Dance).

When I started gathering ideas for this post and putting together this list, I discovered a bunch of new games.  There are simply too many for one post, so I will spread them out in a few different posts. This post will cover games for Terminology and Vocabulary Review.

Terminology & Vocabulary Review

Dance Quiz

Tap Dance Flash Cards
From Dance Teacher Press

Basic vocabulary review.  Here are few ideas to keep it interesting:

• Pick-a-card:  Write down terminology or combinations of steps on note cards.  For younger students, you could draw positions or help them read it.  One at a time, have a dancer pick a card and they must do that step.  For younger students, they get to be the teacher in the front of the room and demonstrate the step while everyone else practices.

• The Line-Up:  Students stand in a line in the back of the studio.  Starting with the first person, teacher gives them a dance step.  If they do it correctly, they get to move up one step.  If they don't know it, they pass and the next person gets the same step until someone knows it. Continue down the line with a new term, going back to the beginning of the line when you run out of dancers.  Goal is to get to the front line (we usually play 3 steps). 

• The Line-Up, fast version: I play this version with larger classes. Students stand in a line (facing away from the mirror to discourage peeking) and all close their eyes.  Teacher says a vocabulary step and every does it in place (keeping eyes closed).  Dance teacher taps anyone who is doing it correctly on the shoulder and they get to move up one step. We usually open our eyes at this point and I pick someone to demonstrate what the step was.  Repeat process. Keep going until someone moves all the way up to the front line.

• Truth or Dare: Teacher asks dancer, "Truth or Dare?".  When dancer says "truth", ask terminology questions (how many sounds in a shuffle hop step, which direction is upstage).  For "dare", they must demonstrate a specific dance step.  You can add "double dare", which would be a harder dance step. 

Roll The Dice

Foam dice source
(I got mine from Amazon.com)

You will need some large foam dice.  Leave one plain (with dots or numbers) and the other add terminology (I used masking tape so that I could change the words for different classes).

For some classes its simple: skip, hop, jump, leap, shuffle, flap, maxi ford, buffalo and for the older classes more complicated, glissade pas de chat, pirouette, jete etc!

Here is how we use them:

• Dice Quiz:   Have a child roll the movement dice and the number dice and they have to do that many repetitions of the step. If they don't know the step you can call them out, and see who is left standing, or let them all remain. My kids love it and it's a great way to test vocabulary. 

• Dice Choreography:  Have each child roll the pair of dice and use the steps to create a dance in succession (two shuffles, four flaps, one buffalo). Sometimes it turns out great and is a very inventive way of creating choreography and other times it's silly or extremely difficult to transition but it's still a fun challenge.   You can expand on this idea for tap, by creating rules for rhythm.  For example, we play where every sound must have one count (so shuffle step would be "1 2 3"), and the kids had to figure out what count we ended on.  You can also add "hold" to one side of the dice, so they will need to count "holds" in the combination.

Dance Pie

(or Cake, or Pizza...or whatever you want to make!  Maybe a salad or smoothie? Cornucopia?)I like to use this with age 3-8 year olds in my tap classes - lots of creative movement.  We create a dance recipe using steps as ingredients.  

1. Form a circle and roll out the dough - we usually roll our arms like in Patty Cake or stomp on the ground in tap (for pie or pizza... maybe grease the pan for cakes?)
2. Ask for a dance step we can add to the pie. Ask how many and what foot to start with.
3. Dance the step all together and "lift up" the ingredients and throw them in the pie (I like to make different steps heavier or lighter... some are sweet, some are sour, some must be sprinkled, some must be tossed - it adds to the fun!)
4. Repeat until your "pie" is full!
5. We march (or another traveling step) around in the circle to mix the pie together, roll the dough on top and pop it in the oven - have to work all together to lift such a heavy pie
6. Wait.. then eat!  Sometimes we count to 8 or do another activity while it's "baking", then take it out and eat it up to make sure we remember all of our steps.

Hot Potato / Pass The Beanbag

Form a circle standing or sitting.  Pass the beanbag (or stuffed animal) until the music stops.  Whoever it stops on must do their favorite dance step.  Or you can have the teacher assign them a step.

Sometimes we play where they have to keep doing the step until the next person gets stopped with the beanbag.

The Airplane Game

Ages 3-6, Sung to the tune of Frere Jacques:

"Chasse chasse,
bourree bourree,
clap clap clap, clap clap clap
running like an airplane, running like an airplane
make a shape, make a shape"

Each time, replace the dance terms/clapping with whatever other dance terms you'd like to practice. Once they get the hang of it, you can add in directions (tip toe to the right or dance in a circle).

Here is an instrumental version of Frere Jacques in case you're not a singer :)

Dance Baseball - see this post for full explanation

Sources:

• Dance.net "Quick List of Kids Dance Games"
• Tap Dance Flash Cards - Dance Teacher Press
• Dice source

Do you have any "games" or activities do you play to review vocabulary?

Tap Teaching Tip: The Snappy Shuffle

This year I have three classes of 1st and 2nd graders in tap / jazz combination class and we are focusing on increasing the speed and clarity of their tap steps.  I've noticed that they are still doing the large "baby" shuffle -- where they use almost their entire leg to swing the foot back and forth to make the sounds.

I was trying to think of a way to help them understand the faster shuffle and we came up with the "snappy shuffle" which we practice during tap barre.  The "snappy shuffle" is a quick shuffle that is small and the dancer uses the knee to do most of the work (lifting the knee up and down as opposed to bringing the whole leg forward and back).

I am having good results so far.  The kids love "going fast" and enjoy the challenge of doing "steps like the big girls/boys".

Now we are working on translating that same "snappy shuffle" into our other steps, like irishes (shuffle hop step) and buffalos (leap shuffle leap).

Here is our tap barre that I use for a warm-up, lately we've been using "He Could Be the One - Hannah Montana to give you an idea of the tempo.