Minute Masterclass Episode 103

Welcome to your one-minute masterclass. I’m Andrea Trench, founder of DiscoverDance and creator of the Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators and the DiscoverDance Experience Membership. Today we are talking about how we incorporate skill development in our DiscoverDance lesson plans. Although we are working on developing skills throughout our entire class, there are three portions of our lesson plan framework where our skills are spotlighted. We emphasize skill development during our BrainDance warm-up, our five-station obstacle course, and an additional skill developing activity following our obstacle course. If you are unfamiliar with the BrainDance, I recommend listening to the DiscoverDance podcast episode Bonus #2 BrainDance 101 before moving forward in this series. 

After we perform our freeze dance and ritual hello song, we move into our braindance. If I am teaching a style specific class, I will lead my dancers through that style of Braindance. When it’s time for our obstacle course, we will incorporate our style specific skills along with the concept of the day into our five station obstacle course. Our five stations include: waiting, balance, gross motor, spatial pattern, and concept exploration stations. Lastly, the additional skill is determined by the concept we are exploring that day and it is either performed independently across the floor or as a group in general space. 

As we highlight multiple styles of dance in future episodes, I will offer specific class activity examples for each of those styles. Stay tuned! To learn about our complete lesson plan frameworks, enroll in the Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators at DiscoverDance.com.