Minute Masterclass Episode 105

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 going inside a DiscoverTAP dance class. For our example, we are exploring the concept of DIRECTIONS during this lesson. After our rhythmic freeze dance with noodle sticks and ritual hello song, we perform a tap braindance emphasizing FORWARD, BACKWARD, SIDEWAYS, UP, and DOWN DIRECTIONS. Our braindance includes toe and heel drops that go UP and DOWN, step heel and heel toe walks moving FORWARDS and BACKWARDS, tap crawls SIDEWAYS, cramp rolls UP and DOWN, and shuffle variations FORWARDS, BACKWARDS, UP, and DOWN (to name a few) all intertwined with the developmental patterns of the braindance. Now we are warm and have already accomplished so much! 

When it’s time for our obstacle course, we will work on our strong straight arms while we tip toe FORWARDS from spot to spot balancing a bean bag on our head, jump click UP and DOWN over a poly spot, navigate a spatial pattern with FORWARD step heel walks, and finish with a concept exploration. Since our concept is DIRECTIONS, we will randomly select a tap flash card and perform it in different DIRECTIONS. For our final skill development, we will be working on developing our listening skills while emphasizing the concept of DIRECTIONS by performing Wave Your Hands High by Music for Moving. 

We have successfully developed our tap skills, while exploring and discovering the concept of the day! To learn about our complete lesson plan frameworks, enroll in the Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators at DiscoverDance.com.