Our “Frozen-Inspired” Dance Camp: Activities & Games

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

This post is part of our “Frozen-Inspired” Dance Camp Series.

Activities / Creative Movement

Melting & Freezing

We explored the movement qualities of melting and freezing by pretending to be Olaf melting in the summer or freezing with Elsa’s help. We melted for 16 slooooooow counts, and froze again for 16 then repeated in 8 counts, 4 counts, 2 and 1! We melted with a friend, froze into different shapes or poses, started on one leg, etc. Lots of variations to be had with this one!

More Melting Inspiration from Maria’s Movers Blog

Journey to Elsa’s Castle

We pretended to be Anna and Kristoff making their journey to or from Elsa’s castle. We did this by playing Going on a Bear Hunt, but we changed the words to “We’re going on a journey, we’re gonna go get Elsa, I’m not scared, I’m not scared”. For the next part (“we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, I guess we’ll go… through it!”), we encountered :

Deep deep snow – big slow marches to lift our feet through the snow
A dark forest – tip toes
A cold frozen stream – skating
A big tall mountain – climbing actions
An icy staircase – careful climbing actions

Until we got to the castle and knocked on the door and found… MARSHMALLOW (the snow monster)! Reverse all the actions as fast at you can to go back to Arrendale and climb into bed with the covers over our head.

Creative Movement based on Scenes or Characters from the Movie

We did a lot of creative movement / free dance, based on settings and characters from the movie. We would first describe the scene / character, then talk about the movements the characters did (running, rolling, climbing, skating, etc) and then dance them using those movements. Some of our favorite scenes:

Olaf In Summer – skipping, laying (sun-tanning), swaying, blowing dandelions, floating

Skating on Elsa’s pond – skating, twirling, sliding

Dancing like Marshmallow – “stompy”, angry, slow

They also enjoyed pretending to be at the coronation ball, dancing like the trolls, pretending to be a snow-swirl created by Elsa, and of course, being Elsa.

Games

In addition to the usual run of camp games (Freeze Dance, 4 corners, relay races, etc), we added a few or tailored them to better fit our theme:

Obstacle Course – We set up various obstacles around the room relating to the trip to Elsa’s castle. We used cones to tip toe around like trees, a tunnel to go under, a gym mat to roll across, a “tightrope” (tape line on the floor) to walk on, ice puddles to jump over (little rugs)

Pin the Nose on Olaf – we had an Olaf-shaped posterboard and had the girls take turns being blind-folded and pinning their “nose” onto Olaf. Since we had a large crew, we split them between three different groups so we could have three people going at the same time.

Our life-size Anna & Elsa was a
big hit for photos!

Red Light, Green Light, Frozen Variation – Basic Red light/Greenlight rules – in our version instead of being a redlight/greenlight, the “It” person is Elsa – and freezes people when she turns around. We used the terms “WINTER” for STOP and “SUMMER” for GO. If anyone was caught moving when the “It” person said WINTER, they had to go back to the starting line. First person to touch the “It” person gets to be “It” for the next round.

One other thing that we used during the week was this Life-size Anna & Elsa – we found this great life-size cardboard cutout from Amazon. They have other characters, but I really liked the two girls together. We used them for a backdrop in our pictures and the kids loved “holding their hand” and just seeing them in general.
What other games / activities can be adapted to fit a “Frozen” theme? Are you sick of the music yet? Will you use it in your classes next season? Comment below!

3Aug2014

Our “Frozen-Inspired” Dance Camp

Posted in Music, Studio Life, Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

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!

What works best for our studio is doing a half-day camp, where the students come 4 or 5 days a week from 9am-noon.

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.

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?

13Feb2014

Winter Olympics-Inspired Movement

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

While my studio is in the process of getting buried under a foot of snow, I figured I would spend my surprise free time planning some olympics-inspired creative movement for tomorrow’s classes.

Pass The Torch – Traveling

You could pass an imaginary torch or a “real” prop (as simple as an orange scarf). Have your dancers spread out around the room. When the dancer has the “torch”, them must dance the torch to the next person and then sit down to indicate they already had a turn. The final dancer brings the torch to the designated “torch lighting station” (could be teacher, or spot in the room).

Pass The Torch – Stationary

Spread out in a line or a circle close enough to touch another person’s out stretched hand. Begin to pass the torch using different levels and different body parts until it reaches the end. If you are using a prop, see how far the class can pass it without dropping.

The Slowest Bobsled Race Ever Won

Connect your dancers into teams of 2, 3 or 4 dancers and have them sit one in front of each other in a straddle (like a caterpiller). Have them hold onto each other at the shoulders or hips so that they are connected.

The goal is to move as a unit over a certain distance (we used tape lines about 5-6 feet apart). Give them time to practice–they will learn quickly they have to work as a team to move without becoming disconnected!

Line up your “bobsleds” and the first group to completely cross the finish wins. Disqualify any team that separates.

Variations: Try a whole-class bobsled! Or backwards or sideways bobsled race!

Ice & Snow Improv

Adapt usual creative movement exercises to be set at the olympics.

Suggested Musical Tracks

Song: Olympic Fanfare and Theme – traditional fanfare
Album: Champions Will Rise – Audiomachine – if you like epic music, this is for you
Song: Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks & Water Music

Have you been watching the olympics? Have you done any lessons based on the olympics? Is anyone else ready for spring?!

16Nov2013

Autumn Leaf Creative Movement Dance

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

I wanted to share an autumn leaf dance I’ve been exploring with my younger classes. It was inspired by a few different posts from fellow dance bloggers and my recent acquisition of scarves!

We danced this dance in my youngest ballet classes (ages 5 and 6) through my intermediate ballet and modern classes (ages 9-12) and they all enjoyed it.

After all, who doesn’t like dancing with scarves!?

Autumn Leaf Creative Movement

This dance can be as structured or as open as you’d like to make it.

Scarves (links to Amazon)

Optional Props: Dance scarves (I purchased these 27″ square ones from Amazon and they are holding up pretty well considering we’ve been using them almost weekly in about 10 classes a week. They are nice and big and come in a nice variety of colors. The edges are starting to fray slightly, but I expected that.)

Skills: Spatial awareness, working with a group, telling a story, improvisation

Music: We used Vivaldi’s Autumn Allegro (The Four Seasons) & for the older classes closer to Halloween switched to a spookier-sounding song – we used Sayuri’s Theme. Links open in iTunes, DB is an iTunes affiliate

We divided our class into Tree dancers, Wind dancers and Leaf dancers. The scarves made it easy as I was able to group dancers by color (red and orange were Leaves, green and yellow were Trees, blue and purple were Wind).

General movements:

Trees – tall and straight, limbs moving and shaking in the wind. For ballet classes, they moved through different ballet arm positions, modern class was freer movements, the scarf held in one or two hands like a leaf.

Wind – flow-y and blow-y, lots of traveling. We used chasses, bourees, gallops, ballet runs, and turns, with the scarf circling overhead

Leaves – going between slow and still movements to fast and big movements. We used skipping, hop scotch, and turns, scarf dancing along with them.

Formation & Travel Patterns:

To start, the Leaves gathered in a pile in the center of the room (sitting or kneeling together). Trees stood in a circle around them. Wind stood in a line “offstage”. I usually appointed a leader (or had my assistant lead) for the Wind so that they would move in a line, like “follow the leader” – it helped them not get so wild.

Blue = Wind dancers, Red = Leaf dancers, Green = Tree dancers

The “Story”: I would narrate this over top of the music, occasionally changing it up (the options I can remember in parentheses). I also think it would work well with Maria’s creative movement falling leaves poem. After a few times, I would give fewer and fewer cues and with the older kids we did it without talking.

Once upon a time, deep in the woods (middle of a meadow, spooky Halloween forest, etc) was a wonderful circle of tall, tall trees.

The trees were straight and tall from their roots (in 1st position for ballet) and stretched their branches up to the sun.

Then one day, the wind began to blow (motion for wind dancers to enter – they would do their movement traveling around the room) and the trees‘ branches began to shake.

The leaves began to dance all around (cue for Leaf dancers to get up and come out of the circle). They danced this way, and that way and twirled and whirled with the wind!

At this point I would send Wind back offstage, (“The wind went away, back from where it came… and the leaves drifted slowly back to their tree grove and trees protected them” – trees would reach hands in the middle to cover leaves) or open it up to creative movement, which is what I would usually do towards the end of our class (all the forest began to move around and dance together).

Repeat and switch roles!

Other ideas we played with during group dance:

Incorporate steps from class, using the scarf (“they balance’d this way and balance’d that way”)
Have all dancers just dance with their arms and the scarf
Observer how the scarf moves and imitate it with their bodies
Float slowly to the ground like a falling leaf
Toss the scarf in the air during their creative dancing

Does anyone else have a fun scarf dance or exercise? Do you do a fall dance? I hope you enjoyed ours!

10Dec2012

Freeze Dance Fun

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

The cold weather makes my classes
excited to play “Freeze Dance”!

“Freeze Dance” is the first activity requested whenever we have a special day in class. My students know Freeze Dance as dance around the room and freeze when the music stops.

This past week in my beginning modern/creative movement class, we used our creative minds to come up with some new variations on Freeze Dance to try in class.

Here are some of the ways that we manipulated the game to be our own – hopefully some are new to you or inspire other new variations!

Shape Freeze

We’ve been using this version in our exploration of shape-making.

While the music is on, the teacher names a shape (circular, square, triangle) and the student must make that shape with a body part when the music stops.

Position Freeze

Similar to the Shape variation described above, but dancers must freeze in the position given – this was fun in ballet and jazz class. Positions to try: 1st, 2nd and 3rd position, retire, arabesque, tendu, plie, lunge, etc.

This might also be fun to try with a class who is learning room positions and stage directions (“Freeze en face” or “Freeze facing upstage” or “point to corner 2”).

‘Dance Like This’ Freeze

The teacher (or student leader) tells the class how to move during the dance part (“Everyone skip”). After each freeze, the type of dancing changes. You can also give speed directives, such as “chasse really slowly” or “bouree quickly”.

We like to play this in tap class for practice on our traveling steps: running flaps, flap ball changes, shuffle hop steps, toe heels, etc.

Changing Music

Also know as the iPod Shuffle…! After each freeze, change the song and dancers must move to the new song.

Now these dancers are REALLY frozen!

In creative movement, we played this after a few weeks of learning the concept of listening to the music and interpreting it in our bodies. It really helped their improvisation skills.

You could also use this in tap or jazz class to work on rhythm and finding the beat in each new song.

Partner Freeze

Dancers must freeze with a partner when the music stops.

You can give conditions such as “freeze connected to another person”, or “Freeze in a group of three”.

I like to mix this one into the other types – “freeze in a round shape with another person”, etc.

Beat the “I’m Out” Blues

For my younger classes we don’t “get out” in any of the above games – we just play for the fun of it. For my older students, they really like the games when there is a chance to be eliminated, so we play that way.

Sometimes my classes age 6-8 request to play the “out” version, but some students get very upset from being “out” whenever we play a game like this.

I like to soften the blow by letting them come over to the music player and telling me when to freeze the music next. Or if they are a particularly enthusiastic class, they can also come up with some new ways to freeze.

What is your favorite movement or dance game to play in class? Share in the comments!

11Oct2012

Pumpkin Creative Movement

Posted in Studio Life by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

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!

12Aug2012

Link Love: Olympic-Inspired Movement

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

Thanks to Teach Preschool’s post about the Olympic Blog Hop, I discovered a bunch of great Olympics-inspired movement posts for the little ones and had to share!

Move Like a Gymnast from Creative Family Fun – these activities might be fun to incorporate into a summer camp next year.

Pom Pom Games – These pom poms look fairly easy to make and would be a fun alternative to bean bags in the classroom.

Movement Games for Young Children – a few ideas and a great list of guidelines for creating your own movement game.

Ring-Based Movement Ideas – You could easily translate these ideas to non-Olympic rings by using some hoola hoops or rubber circles.

Olympic Family Fitness from The Iowa Farmer’s Wife – a 15-minute fitness lesson for a 3-year old including warm-up, activity and cool down.

Cute London Bus Prop Idea – ok, so this one has nothing to do with movement, but the London bus they made from a cardboard box would be a cute prop!

Have you been watching the Olympics? Will any Olympic inspired movement be making its way into your classrooms this year?

20Jul2012

Creative Movement: Beating The Heat

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

“Hot Sun” by Brian Gurrola

Summer is in full swing and it’s been hot hot hot where I live for the past two weeks! If it’s summer where you live, I’m sure you are feeling the heat. I feel badly for my city neighbors who have been suffering from super heated subways and sidewalks… Make sure you’re staying hydrated if it’s hot where you live!

Because of the heat, in creative movement summer class we’ve been channeling “cool thoughts”. Here are a few exercises you can do with your classes:

1) Snowy Day Dances.

Maria explains it best in her blog entry with a ton of great creative movement ideas about snow, and using the book, “Snowy Day” (Maria’s Movers)

2) Build a Snow Man (or Woman) – group exercise

Split up into “Snow People” and “Builders/snow artists”. The Builders will create a snow person out of the Snow People by gently guiding and shaping each snow person into a shape to make one big snowman.

The first time we do this exercise, I assign each Builders a part, like “lower body”, “face”, “accessories”, to help them narrow down what they are creating. If your crew is really good at working together or you have a small class, then you might be able to skip the assignments and just let them create together.

Remind the Snow that their job is to hold their position, but cooperate if a new Builder would like to shape them differently.

Each of the Builders adds on the creation (stretching arms to create scarves, moving hands for buttons or even suggesting an expression for the Snow to make). Suddenly… Voila! you have a snow man! Switch the groups and tasks and repeat!

I love this exercise for my youngest creative movement class (ages 7-10), as it is a great introduction to group work and partnering in a fun way. This is a very hands-on activity… we learn about communication, leadership and cooperation.

My older kids get a kick out of it too and you can create some cool lifts (no pun intended) out of it. With my older ones, I skip the assignments and just split them into groups of 3-5 and tell them they need to create a snow man or woman using their bodies. Then we take turns showing our snow person and creating storylines about what the snow person does for a living, what he or she is doing at that very moment. A lot of fun!

3) Ocean Dances

Check out this page Ohia.com for a lot of great ocean-inspired creative movement exercises!

4) Storm Dance

Weather and nature is great for creative movement inspiration. My 5 and 6 year olds enjoy being seeds that blow in the wind and then turn into flowers when the sun shines. When we are flowers our roots are planted (either by sitting, kneeling or standing in one spot) and just our upper body moves.

Sometimes there is a big thunderstorm coming and our petals and leaves blow very fast (we sort of look like those inflatable tubes that wave all around). Other times it rains and we drip and droop. When the sun shines we stand up very tall and spread our leaves to catch all of the sunshine.

Other times we pretend we are clouds that float about the room. Our clouds can be blown by the wind together to travel in one direction or sometimes we float in different directions. Have fun creating your own weather dances!

5) Other “Cool”Summer Movement Inspiration

– Ice melting and freezing: great for “freeze dance”
– Floating in a pool or stream: oh no! there’s a whirlpool!
– Making shapes that divers make (cannonball!)
– Blowing in the wind
– Rain: light rain, heavy rain, being a flower or plant in the rain
– Fishing: being fish, being on a boat, fishing, being the worm, seaweed
– Fans: slow fans, oscillating fans, big fans, small fans
– Making Lemonade: adding sugar, ice, lemons, mixing

Music Suggestion: The David Sun Natural Sound Collection: Sounds of the Earth – Storm

How do you “stay cool” at dance class? Any summer movement ideas?

14Jul2012

Creative Movement: The Name Dance

Posted in Teachers by Cait (The Dance Buzz)

One of my favorite activities to do on the first day of Dance Camp or the first day of class is to create a “Name Dance”. It is a simple and fun activity that helps us learn each other’s names.

The Name Dance
To begin, start in a circle. One at a time, each student says their name with a simple gesture. Encourage the students to do whatever movement they want – does not have to be a ‘technical step’. Let them experiment with how they say their name – rhythmic, loud, soft, etc.

Go around the circle a second time; students may keep their same gesture or change it. This time, when a student does their name gesture, the class must echo them in both movement and sound.

The third time around, build the dance. Link a few name gestures together and practice saying / doing them in a row. See if you can make it all the way around the circle to finish the full Name Dance.

Bonus Name Dance Activities
If everyone is still enjoying the Name Game and you’ve gotten the hang of it, try going faster, in slow motion, facing outside the circle or going in reverse order.

This game is a lot of fun and students will remember their step for weeks to come – I’ve had students say “oh, now we’re doing The Emma” or “can we add a Sophia in here”. Some of my classes like to greet each other with the other person’s gesture.

And by the way, a “Miss Cait” is a very fancy curtsey 🙂