We have just started a 2 yr old creative movement class, with 6 girls and 2 boys. We just finished our 2nd class, and it seems like craziness the entire time. We do not have observation windows, and one of the girls cries if her mom isn't in the class. Also my little girl is in the class and she cries if I touch any of the other kids. One of the boys doesn't listen at all it seems. When will it all seem to be not so chaotic? Should we do everything in the same order each week, with the same music?
I would really appreciate any imput/advice on how to make the class run more smoothly! Thank You!

I teach all my toddler classes by themes such as dinosaur week, beanie baby week and so on...also, my intro and ending are always the same and try to bring in some props and music that spiked there interest...another thing with that age group I do mommy and me works well

Should we do everything in the same order each week, with the same music?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! They do so much better when they understand what you expect of them.

My general class agenda -

-Bring the kids in, sit them all down, ask them all a basic question. Sometimes I'll ask what they had for breakfast, sometimes I'll name a random body part and ask them to show me where it is. I sort of play it by ear.

-Get up and do an "action" song. "Head, shoulders, knees and toes", once they got the hang of it, was great fun. It was a learning curve for them though.

-Bounce like tiggers.

-Fly like an airplane.

-Gallop like horsies.

-Ring around the rosie.

-"Jazz" dance. No more than five times.

-Tumbling time. Three tricks, everybody gets two tries at each of the three tricks.

-Tap shoe time! Have everybody "ice skate" in their tap shoes. Gives them time to work out some of the sillies they feel, and some of that sliding desire, plus shows them that they can slide, and be OK.

-Marching. Works out a little of that desire to stomp around in their shoes too.

-Tap dance. Again, no more than five times. Call in mom and dad for last dance.

-Dish out stickers.

I like to, as much as possible, theme my songs to what we're doing. I downloaded the "Wonderful thing about Tiggers" for bouncing like Tigger, "Fly Through The Air" for flying like airplanes, and some marching song for the marching. I try as much as I can to theme the songs, I think it helps them remember the order a little bit.

And whenever we learn a "new" thing, I really, really hype it up. We never learn a new jazz step and a new tap step on the same day, lol.

Keep them BUSY. Keep 'em busy, keep 'em busy, keep 'em busy! Always. I can easily make that agenda run over time. In fact, I often have to reign myself in to stop myself from doing exactly that!

And you may have to just face the idea that some of these kids aren't old enough to do this. Especially your daughter - you can't have a student that cries every time you touch any other students, regardless of who she is. I had a three year old boy sign up with me, which should have been great, aside from the fact that he never listened to a word I said, and was on a one kid mission to knock my wall down. Kid had to go. Some of them just aren't old enough for it yet, period.

How long is the lesson, all of my preschool classes are 30 or 45 minutes, no longer and most of these kids would be 4, not 2. To be honest at that age it's better to have a mummy and me class anyway, is there any way that it can be changed to this?

I would also suggest, if at all possible, to not have your daughter in the class. At two years old it must be very hard for her to understand that during class time you are teacher, not mommy. It could also be hard for the others to understand why her mommy can be there and theirs can't. If that can't happen, maybe it would be smart to change it to a mommy and me class.

My first year sounded very much like this class! After 3 years I have it pretty much down to a T. I definitely recommend routine!

I have a designated spot for each dancer and I use a fun picture like a flower sticky note and tape it to the floor. As soon as they start to wander off the spot I make sure to put them back on it. If I see several have lost attention I stop the music and offer a small treat like 1 m&m for the students that stayed on their spot. This encourages them to continue with the behavior as well as encourages the wanderer's to stay put!

A great resource tool with fun creative movement and basics for this age is the baby ballet class cd, dance adventures volume 2, and Pre -k dance program 1 all from music works unlimited website. I also have a student helper to help for the ones that tend to want to wander.

The busier you keep them the less time they have to run around! Hope this helped

We do:
18 - 36 months - Parent and Tot
2 1/2 - 3 - Creative Movement
4 -5 Ballet and Tap.

For our independant 2 1/2 - 3 yr old class they must be able to separate from mom. We give them 4 weeks. I find they are either ready and warmed up at that point or not (if not we reccoemend parent and tot).

run the class the same way every week. We just rolled out a syllabus at our studio this year and each age group has their own separate movements and music. There are alternative exercises to add as they get accustomed to class and move faster and there are exercises to add once they have aquired new skills. I only change out a max of 2 activities a week for variety.
With my parent and tot and creative ballet I like to uses this format:
Welcome circle, warm up, "stretching", issolations
Movement actvity (butterfly, fast and slow, etc)
Circle (plie, releve, tendu, port de bras)
Across the Floor (marching, bourre (ballerina/princess walks), grande battements, 2 footed jumps, gallops
Circle (jumps, movement activity, pretend play, stickers or stamps, thank you and courtsey)
Line up at the door.

Check out www.kimboed.com they have lots of great music to choose from.

I also started giving out a "What to expect from your child's dance class" paper the first day of class. I listed what they will be learning throughout the year and that it is normal for kids that age to have separation anxiety, they are learning through games and pretend play, it's ok at 2 if they sometime would rather sit and watch an activity, they are still learning. It helps everyone have realistic expectations of what they do. We limit classes to 10 and always have a helper. right now we have college interns who are working for free and are learning our program. They love it bc they aren't learning that in their dance classes and I love it beacuse it is free and gives me to talented adults in the room!

I have a 2 year old class- we do everything in the same order in the beginning so the children get used to the class format, when we've noticed that the children have got the routine down we may change things up a bit. I try to do stuff in class that the kids can do together- leave and end starting in a circle, we do a marching band at the end of tap which the kids love, and also we have them play freeze dance with scarfs in ballet. I do Plies and releve in a circle so they don't swing on the barre. Don't get discouraged, some kids take longer then others - in the end it always ends up being my favorite class.

Holy cow! I cant imagine teaching a 2 year old class exclusively...kudos for you for your patience lol.
I teach a me and mommy class and even that is hard to do with the mom right there!

On my playlist on my iPod for the babies, I make sure I have a bunch of "emergency" songs...songs where they have to listen to direction or else they will miss out on all the fun when they need to get reeled in. I've found that way when the song is over, they will still want to listen to you in case they miss out on something. Animal Action is always a favorite, along with some Greg & Steve, even though it makes my ears bleed!

Sometimes, it takes very long time for them to get accustomed to the routine, so have some hope! I've had kids screaming and crying trying to run out of the room for weeks and weeks, and then one day they will actually enjoy the 45 minutes! And as much as I hate to bribe kids, stickers are the only thing that will work sometimes.

There is a fantastic new book called Tiny Toes that has a lot of great material for children ages 2-5. Wonderful pictures and Cd. I can't recall the offer, but she is also an dancers. I am using it this year! It can be purchased on Amazon.

Develop a routine for them, absolutely. And once they learn what to expect every week in class, they'll settle fairly well.

However, always have a few activities up your sleeve that you can pull out when they start to lose interest in whatever you had planned to do with them. You'll know when their attention starts to drift, and when it happens, change gears fast.

Regarding the crier: Don't bring mom into the room. It'll be more trouble than it's worth. Either a) she'll be so distracted by mom's presence that you won't get anything done, b) the other kids will be so distracted by mom's presence that you won't get anything done, c) the other kids will want to have their mommies in class, too and may emulate her behavior to get the same result, or d) all of the above. Bring her in the room, shut the door, and let her cry it out. Don't pay attention to the crying. If you start giving her special treatment when she's crying, she'll keep crying to keep getting the special treatment. Once she calms down and realizes that she's not part of the fun, she'll come check it out. It might even take a couple of classes for her to get there, especially since she's so young. And if she just can't seem to do it, then maybe she's just not ready for this kind of situation yet.

The boy who doesn't listen may just not realize what's expected of him. In a group this young, this is likely their first experience with being in a class setting where they have to listen to someone who isn't Mommy and stay in a line or an assigned place in a circle and take turns with the other kids. Every time his attention wanders, just bring him back again. He'll get it. And again, if he doesn't get it, then maybe it's too early for this.

I have to say that in my opinion, two years old is too young for dance classes. I refuse to teach children that young. I had a class a couple of years ago that was supposed to be three-fours but the SO kept sending me younger and younger girls. First it was "She'll be three next month" and eventually it became "She'll be three in six months." That class was an absolute disaster. One or two of them were simply too immature for the setting. And I know that part of the problem was that these kids were added mid-year and I ended up having to do a lot of backtracking to acclimate them and teach them the skills the others had mastered, and also that the class was too long for them (45 minutes), but it gave me a bad taste for teaching kids under two.

Structure is key! I use the same basic structure for mommy & me & for my 3-4 year old class. It helps once the mommy& me girls are at the next age because they still know what to expect. I change things up more frequently in the 3-4 year old class though because i have tap for that. If your students are 2, my best advice is to make the class 30mins and cut tap out. I think it is too young of an age to incorporate the shoe change.

My class structure goes like
-Stretch in circle for 5 mins
-animal walk across the floor (crab (though at this age it is just scooting on their butts), elephant, monkey, flamingo, frog hops, horse gallop)
-ballet circle (tendue, plie, releve (right foot), chasse to the right (like ring around the rosie)... Repeat everything to the left.
-front rolls
-marching to yankee doodle
- some type of combination or working on their arms (i use scarves and have them act like wind or flowers... etc)
-hokey pokey or another movement song

I also use a ton of dance stories. I have to look to see what book it was, but one of the activities the teacher did was acting like flowers and as a result my girls begged to dance like flowers. There are also stories like Barnyard dance by sandra boyton that I use.

Good luck! PM me if you need anything else!

In England I hold my Dance with A Difference classes which I won Best new activity for Children in the UK with in June this year dancewithadifference.co.uk
This can be taken into schools/Preschools/kindergartens or into your own Dance schools.

Tiny Toes is by Donna Jakob. I just ordered it to help with my own Creative Movement classes. Thanks for the info!

Lisa N.

I also would start the class by taking attendance aloud and having the kids share something when I called their name (favorite color, show me how to point your toe, etc). Another thing I liked to use are the color dots you can put on the floor, even if they don't know their colors they will know which one is theirs. Follow along songs and little props help as well. I would only change maybe 1 song a week, otherwise keep the order consistent.

Yes, same thing, same music every week! Every 3-4 weeks I try to add in something new though. I have a set playlist so it just goes and I never mess with the music.

Here's my class structure:
Before they come in I set up hula hoops in a straight line (not touching) and one in front for me. I face them and mirror them the entire time. They come in and stand in the middle of a hula hoop.

Song 1: Shake your sillies by the Wiggles. Follow the instructions in song
Song 2: Walk around the Hoops. It's a jewish children's song. Try to follow instructions but for beginning of year, some of it's difficult. It's okay to water it down. It does a lot of jumping in the hoops, so I'll up it a little by the 3rd time by doing jump apart, jump together. And I just added jump half turns as well.
Song 3: If you're happy and you know it. Get back in the hoops. Find a version that only has like 3 different ones, not too long. I use a Mickey Mouse version.
Song 4: Bend your knees. Also a jewish children's song. follow the directions. For stretch to the sky, I turn that into tippy toes balance (releve) with Sunshine (high 5th) arms and a bourree turn. For the part where they hold hands, we walk one way, walk the other way, make a small circle, make a big circle (a few times) and then follow the directions.
Then the next 5-6 songs are just children's songs (farmer in the dell, bingo) but instrumental version. With those I do touch the toe out of the hoop (tendu) close it in. Passes. Arabesques (more fun than technical, we act like airplanes and see who can hold it the longest). Then they sit down to one side and I set up the hoops like a short hopscotch. One hoop, two hoops, one hoop. They come up one at a time and try to jump it two feet at the same time. Then I put the hoops up and they stand on their marks (so they don't rely on hoops completely). Open door and close door (switching feet from parallel to first position). Then give them each a color scarf. Have them put in right hand. hold to the side, hold down, hold up, hold side. Do that a few times, then speed it up "draw a rainbow". Working on ballet arms basically. Repeat in left hand. Then hold with two hands (kind of like a bat), go up high (releve) then down on the ground (squat). I use high voice and low voice for this, they love it. Then make it into a ball, on the count of 3 throw it, training them to look at it (follow with their eyes) as it falls to the ground. Do 3 times. This trains their eyes to follow something, which comes in handy later for barre (older of course) and spotting.

Then across the floor I do tendu front, slide that foot, jump together. And Bourree walks.

Then I get out a flat mat and one at a time do forward rolls. Then I get out a barrell mat (small from mancino) and they lay on their backs and rock from hands to feet (working on back flexibility). Then I get out a soft beam and they walk forward and backward on tippy toes (not first few weeks, add toes in later). And we just recently added jumps with two feet down the beam.

I end with freeze dance song. I can't remember exact name or who it's by, but it's something like "everybody walk, walk,everybody walk and walk, everybody walk, walk, walk and walk and FREEZE". And it involves skipping, marching, free dance, etc.

Hope this helps!