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?

Pumpkin Creative Movement

I read Maria's great pumpkin patch creative movement idea and was inspired to try it in my classes this past week!  And check out this post at Maria's Movers for even more ideas.

I teach two ages of creative movement - 4's & 5's and an older group of pre-modern students (ages 8-11).  Both loved the new activity!

The 4's & 5's

Growing Pumpkins

First we had a quick discussion about pumpkins:

• What shape and color are they? 
• Where do they come from?
• How they grow?
• Can we eat them?  
• What's inside a pumpkin?

We planted ourselves in the room and grew very, very slowly.  My assistants pretended to be farmers and people going pumpkin-picking and they inspected each pumpkin.

Our pumpkins rolled around the room for a bit and then we started over.  This time, the pumpkins were painted with happy, silly or scary faces.  They had fun making faces while they were pumpkins.

Pumpkin-Picking

Next we changed roles and went pumpkin picking.  My studio is in a suburban area surrounded by farms, so many of the students were familiar with the idea of pumpkin picking. Our movements:

• Tip toe through the rows
• Jumping over pumpkins
• We picked out our favorite pumpkins and brought them to the middle of the room to make a pumpkin pile
• We repeated to find the heaviest, the tiniest, the fattest and the roundest pumpkins and carried, lifted, rolled, and pushed them into our pile

I also asked them what else they might see in a pumpkin patch and we saw:

• Crows that flew, perched and caw'ed
• Grass and corn that stood tall and waved in the wind
• Creepy crawly bugs and worms
• Scarecrows that stood very still and had stiff arms and legs
• A hayride that we all got on together and rode around the room to finish our exercise!

Ages 8-11: Beginning Modern / Creative Movement

I used these exercises as a warm-up.  It was a nice change for them and they seemed to enjoy it:

Growing Pumpkins

Surprisingly enough, we started the same way, but with less instruction.

• Slow growing from a seed to long twisty and stretch vines that covered the floor (focus on moving slowly and stretching our bodies)
• Growing big leaves and even a few flowers (continue stretching)
• Growing a pumpkin (making a round shape)
• Rolling around as a pumpkin1
• Being carved to have a funny, silly, happy or scary face (some used just their faces, others used their whole body)
• Being left out on the porch too long and rotting!

1 We have been learning rolls where we hold our ankles in the butterfly position (my modern instructor at college called these "UFO's"... not sure of the 'correct term').

Pumpkin-Picking

I tried to incorporate our modern dance vocabulary into our movements:

1) Prancing: We didn't want to get our shoes muddy, so we pranced through the rows (and hopped over pumpkins in our path).

2) Triplets:  We put boots on and squished the mud with our up-up-squish (down).

We chose pumpkins and explored how it was like to move with our pumpkins (we are currently exploring weighted-movement, so this fit in perfectly).

We repeated this a few times with various sizes,  various ways to carry our pumpkins and then we found the Biggest Pumpkin Ever and tried to move it but it wouldn't budge.

Pumpkin Carving

We decided to carve the Biggest Pumpkin Ever right there!  We cut the top off and climbed inside (it truly was a big pumpkin!).  Other movement ideas:

• Scooping out the seeds and "gross stuff", as my students put it
• We had a little food fight by throwing the seed chunks as each other
• We scraped around the inside, which was great spiraling movement
• Climbing back out, we carved a large face in our pumpkin
• Climbing back in, we pushed hard on the face parts to "pop" them out
• Lighting a candle or light inside the pumpkin

Want even more pumpkin dance ideas? Check out Maria's latest post with three more pumpkin movement ideas.

Have you done any fall-inspired activites with your classes?

Share in the comments!

January Blog Challenge: Personal Dance Firsts

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Attention all dance bloggers, here is your January Blog Challenge - we're starting off with a fun, personal one.

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to share a picture and story of one of your "dance firsts".  First class, first show, first shoes... whatever inspires you!

The Details

1. Choose one picture that represents your dance first
2. Share your story
3. Include a link back to this post (Permalink: )

If you participate, leave a comment below with the link to your post so we can share in the fun!

UPDATED JAN. 29, 2012 - Here are all the participants so far:

• Maria's Movers: The Class That Started It All
• Married To The Dance: My First Flamenco
• Nichelle (from Dance Advantage)
• Kim at Velocity Dance and Fitness
• Moira from On My Toes
• Sara from Rince Go Bragh

And with that, here's my dance first.... 

My first dance performance!

Link Love: Great Teaching Ideas!

Times Union

Hurricane / Tropical Storm Irene went through my area in upstate New York, but luckily power was all we lost yesterday.  Many places in my area are flooded, but we just had a few downed branches and trees. The creek by one of my studio locations overflowed and closed the road and parking lot, but didn't get close to the building.  I am so thankful for all of the workers who were out yesterday repairing the power lines and keeping people safe from flooded roadways.  Hope all my readers are also safe after the storm.

Now that the power is back on, I have been catching up on some dance blog reading.  There are some really great teaching ideas I can't wait to use in my classes in the fall and share with my teachers.

• Improv Dance Ideas for Children by Sheri
• Beating The Don't Wanna Dance Blues by Sheena Jeffers at Maria's Movers
• Improve Jumps by Sheri
• Beating the First Day Jitters by Stacey Pepper Schwartz at Dance Advantage

Happy reading!

New Music Mondays: Preschool Playlist

Inspired by last month's post on Zooglobble, I set out to find artists featured on his blog to come up with a unique playlist for preschool dance that wasn't filled with Disney artists.  Here is my result:

Warm-Up Songs
One Tiny Light - Recess Monkey
Morningtown - Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem
C'Mon - Renee and Jeremy
Let Me Be Yours - Lucky Diaz
Funkee Flora de Fiesta - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke

Movin' and Groovin'! - directive songs
Constellation Conga - Recess Monkey
The Dance From Outer Space - Billy Kelly
Tennessee Wig Walk - Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem
Rocks & Flowers - Caspar Babypants
Stomp Stomp - Putumayo Jazz Playground

Other Fun Tunes
Going To The Moon - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke - this would be a fun sing-a-long
Dog Gone Gone Dog Gone - Caspar Babypants - this is just a fun song to listen to
Frenzy - Dean Jones - your body just starts moving to this song!

Enjoy!


Click here for other playlists

New Music Mondays: Zoo Globble

If you're looking for new preschool / elementary music, or if you're a parent of a little one, you will love the Zooglobble blog!  Stefan Shepherd, the man behind the blog, reviews preschool albums that parents can actually listen to on repeat without going insane.  Check out this post on the Best Kids Music for 2010.

While the site is not aimed towards teaching dance, music and dance go hand in hand, so it is a great resource for any preschool teacher.  I have found a lot of new music and sometimes the artists he features will offer free downloads.  The posts usually have some way to preview the songs, artists and albums they are reviewing, so you can see if it will work for you.

Even if you don't have room to add another blog to your reading list, at least bookmark the site for their huge list of children's music links on the side of their site.

Other ways to find Zooglobble:  Facebook  Twitter

On The Blogs: Choosing a Pre-School Program

Choosing a Dance Program for your Pre-School Boy

Just read this insightful article by Nichelle Strzepek on MySonCanDance blog. If you're a parent looking for a dance program for your son, give this one a read. If you're a studio owner wondering why you don't have many boys, check this article to see what red flags your studio that could be sending to parents with boys. For example:

"2. A school without pink walls

A studio’s pink walls equivalent might be princess themes or anything that unnecessarily genderizes dance. Pink is a fine color and for the moment, pink is actually among my son’s favorite colors. However, a school that is “painting their walls pink” is either hoping to appeal to only one demographic or it has never really crossed their mind that a boy might enter the establishment as a student. Either way, it is reason enough for me to look elsewhere.

It may seem like a small thing but, for boys and young men, no pink walls can make all the difference. It is about feeling welcome and comfortable in an environment."

There is also some good advice that is useful to any parent looking for a dance studio for their child:

"Look for a school whose older dancers move in a coordinated, pleasing fashion."

Looking at a studio's advanced dancers is very often a good indicator of how serious a school is or what their focus is on.

Either way, good article - read on!
http://mysoncandance.net/2010/07/27/choosing-a-dance-program-for-my-preschool-aged-son/