The Pancake Flip

This summer I am teaching a few private tap classes! I love it! Yesterday was our first meeting since the semester ended and we reviewed all the steps we had been learning in class. One step I find really fun and challenging for 8 year olds, and especially boys is barrel turns. They always ask to practice them. Are you wondering what a pancake has to do with barrel turns? Me too, but the imagery just came to me! Let me explain....

Rap your toe behind you, I call this "toast it"

"Flip the pancake" to the back, keeping the same foot in the air (now your facing the back)

Step the same foot down as you turn back to the front "plate it"

Step your other foot down to face the front "syrup it"

So here's the step- "Toast it, Flip it, Plate it, Syrup it!"

It really does work, we were getting dizzy doing so many barrel turns yesterday! If you teach tap you should try it!

Do you have special imagery that you use while teaching a challenging tap step? I would love to hear!

Talent Show

This is a video of one of my first year tap students at his school talent show. I put together this little combination for him, we had a few practice sessions, and as you will see, he brought the house down! I was so proud of him! :)

Tappy Day!

I still have a few hours to wish you all a Happy National Tap Dance Day! I taught ballet and movement all day today to the babies, but I was surely thinking about tap dance while I was doing it! Did you do anything to celebrate today? I hope you went to class or tappy hour! (haha)

On thursday I have parents day for my tap classes! I will be sure to tell them about National Tap Dance Day! :)

Thank You Notes

Next week and the week after I am bombarded with parents days and end of the year celebrations. Woohoo! I like to give the kids something on the last day to remember me by. Since I have SO many students, it would get expensive to buy something for all of them. This is what I came up with! Thank you notes for a great year! It's just something little, but I know it will mean a lot to them. I did one for movement and one for tap. I am still working on the ballet ones since those are a little more special to me. I will post them next week!

Do you make or give anything to your students at the end of the year? I am sure you all have amazing ideas!

Circles

This semester, circles have saved my life. I usually start my class in a circle, but many times I go back to a circle in the middle of the class. I feel that circles are a way to bring the class back together and calm the excitement. With my 3 year olds, we start in a line and I tell them to hold hands, and then I hold the hands of the dancers on each end to connect the circle. I tell them "it's magic!" I overheard one of them saying " Miss Maria thinks it's magic, but we are just really good at making circles!" (haha!)

In tap class, I find circles work well with challenging classes. I made their combination in a circle and it keeps them focused, rather than looking in the mirror, looking out the window or distracting each other. I have more control then when they are in a line or coming across the floor.

Do you find that circles work well for you?

Asking Students for Help?

I need to tell you a story. I tried something today in class that worked! But, I need to know what you think...Here is the story:

I have about 5 boys in tap class and they are all around 9 years old. All great boys, but I have one boy who is a major disruption to the class. He makes noises, plays with the blinds, and gets really distracted very easily. I have tried to help him as much as I can, I have even had meetings with his mom to see what would be best for him. Somedays it seems that I alone cannot keep him under control. Today, he was making noises while I was listening to another students tap sounds, so I told one of the other boys that if he wanted to he could politely ask him to stop making the noise. He stopped! Another time later in the class, he couldn't stop his body from moving, so I asked the same student to politely (key word) ask him to get his body ready to start practicing our dance.

I am thinking maybe for this class I need a teachers helper? Someone that can help me keep everyone on track? What do you think? Have you ever used this tactic? It seemed to work today, but I don't know if it will continue to work or if it is even a good idea. Thoughts? I would love to hear!

Same spot, New spot

Do you ever notice that when your students come into the room they always sit or stand in the same spot? Well, I have window clingers, mirror touchers, piano players, and barre hangers all in my tap class. I noticed today that, they always seem to gravitate to the same spot in the room every week. I wonder if they feel safe there? When I think about when I take dance class, I usually stand in middle, that's where I feel safe. I thought about bringing them out of their comfort zone, so today I tried something new. Every time we moved to a new exercise, I had them find a new spot. I thought maybe this would enable them to see what other parts of the room are like, and maybe stand next to a new person too! It seems so silly, but I think it is a habbit to many of them, and I want them to be able to dance anywhere, not just in the same spot, in the same room every week.

Do you find your students like to do this? Do you think its good for them to be in the same spot every week? Or is it best to change it up? I would love to hear!

Until Next Time...

I have been thinking a lot lately about the way I end my dance classes. For ballet, I sing a song or we do our reverence nice and slow. For creative movement, we become a bear or rabbit or dance our way out with a prop. For tap, we talk about what we are going to practice over the week. I wonder what other creative ways I can explore ending a dance class?

What about you? How do you end your class? Do you have something special you do? Say names, do solos? I would love to hear!

Playing Catch Up

This past thursday was a new semester at Mark Morris. I was very excited to see what students return but I was also anxious because I knew I would be getting new students. I thought a lot about what to do if I got new students in my class of tappers (ages 6-7) who have now have taken tap with me for 3 months. What a challenge! Here is what I did...

1) I paired up the my "new friends" with a tapper who has been in the class. I called them my helpers.

2) We did the class as usual, but I had my helpers teach them how to do the steps. I told them to say the steps out loud first! It works!

3) I went around to each pair and made sure they were on track and offering help to the new friends.

One thing that surprised me: My "old tappers" were saying very encouraging words to their partners! "Great job, you got it!" It made me so proud that they were being supportive of each other.

I think it's really difficult for both the new students and the continuing students. I know I will have to do something else in a few weeks so the continuing students don't get bored. However, I don't want to loose the new students either. I told the new students they have to work really hard to catch up.

I am curious to know what you think about adding kids to a class in the middle of the year? Do you have any tricks you use for catching students up quickly? I have thought a lot about this one, I would love to hear your ideas!

In the meantime movecreateducate...

Parents Day

This past week was the end of the fall semester for my tappers (ages 5-teen) at Mark Morris. Parents Day for me= excitement and anxiety. I love to give the students the chance to show their parents how much they have learned. This parents day was a bit different for me though, many times the parents are nice but not very interactive. The parents were so supportive, they clapped after every child showed a step. They laughed when something was funny, AND they thanked me afterwards for all my hard work and how much I taught them in such a short period of time. It really made me smile and I was so proud of the kids! Of course, the kids didn't talk the whole time like they usually do, they are so chatty! We moved through the class pretty quickly and I was able to end the class a few minutes early so I could get some feedback from the parents. I hope they sign up again next semester!

What about you? Do you ever have parents day for any of the classes you teach? Are the parents supportive and excited? Do you get nervous? I sure do. Do the kids act differently? That question might be a no brainer, but I am just curious! I would love to hear!

In the meantime movecreateeducate...

Teen Tap

Every Thursday I teach a class called Teen Tap.  I  have had a about 4 weeks of the class now and believe me when I say I am so happy I am not a teen anymore.  Remember when you were a teen? Your body didn't fit into your clothes... your legs and arms were to long for you body. I try to make the class important to them and something they will look forward to each week.   Last week they were obviously bored because they came in with all of these ideas, "can we make a dance to chicago?" "can you teach us barrel turns and time steps?" I have learned very quickly that they are very eager to learn and learn very quickly.  

So today I downloaded all of the Chicago music and brought it to class today.  Well you would of thought I brought them all ice cream with all of the toppings.  They were so happy and I think were looking forward to the class because they came with all of these ideas.  Of course they gave me their opinions for next week's choreography (which I am so happy about).  The teens taught me something about myself tonight.  I usually (and now I see it) choreograph the dance or put the steps together and then try different pieces of music to experiment with.  This has given me a challenge and will throughly enjoy choreographing to "All that Jazz" for the next couple of weeks! 

Oh and since we are talking tap, I found these really cool tap shoes at Tap Emporium! 

Aren't they neat... of course not practical for tap teachers but makes me smile anyway!

In the meantime movecreateeducate...

Teaching Tap

These are my tap classes from yesterday.  They are beginners to tap, yesterday was their first class.  Ages 7-9 they are doing great! I am try to challenge them to keep all of the diverse learners happy! I have 4 boys and 7 girls in this class.  
I am teaching them a combination that they can bring back every week. I will add on to it every week as well.  I hope to have this combination for the parents day in December! 

More teaching in action to come...

In the meantime movecreateeducate...

Calling All Tappers!

My new tap shoes... aren't they beauties! I thought I would show them off since I have not purchased tap shoes since I was in high school! If you don't know how long ago that was, don't worry, it was long long ago! I wish I had a picture of my old ones so we could compare the difference. I will just tell you this, the bottoms fell out! That's how much I used them and love to tap and teach tap!

This year at Mark Morris Dance Group (click here to find my classes and my bio) I will be teaching 4 tap classes! Can you tell I'm excited? In the next couple weeks I will be coming up with curriculum to teach for Tap 1-2-and 3 and beginning teen tap (ages 13-17)! I will let you know what I come up with... write in your suggestions or ideas if you love to tap!

In the meantime movecreateeducate...