FUN, DYNAMIC DANCE CLASSES FOR CHILDREN AGED 1-6 YEARS

The Learn and Grown childcare program is a fun, dynamic dance and music program available to all Active Kids families who attend on relevant days. Our classes are tailored to suit a range of ages between 1- 6 years and are an engaging combination of jazz dance technique, musicality activities, imagination development and group interaction. The daycare classes run between 15 minutes to half an hour and are consciously developed to reflect key EYLF guidelines and outcomes. Every class we ensure that children are learning at age-appropriate levels whilst having lots of fun!

Our early learning classes strive to include all children so each feel that they belong in our class. Our teachers create a sense of community amongst the children via group activities that require cooperation, as well as activities that ask each child to contribute towards a bigger outcome. Each child is encouraged to tap into their sense of being through creative and fun play, lots of opportunities of fun self-expression and focusing on the more complex aspects of our dance activities as they are executing them.

A big part of our focus in each child care class is to encourage children to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of the world around them. We are always introducing new activities that provide growth in a gentle and fun way. In this way, we help the children in becoming more active citizens in the world.

CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF IDENTITY:

Our program encourages children to develop a sense of identity via our respectful, caring and gentle interactions between children and teachers, and also via more structured and deliberate aspects of our program. In the Learn and Grow dance program, we believe that children sense of identity is tied to self confidence and belief in their own abilities. Every childcare class is structured in a similar way, with the actual content within that structure changing week to week. Once a child understands how the early learning class will be run they grow confident to explore more creative aspects of the dance and drama games. We also give children an opportunity to express themselves creatively via our activities, which are focused on fun and movement rather than disciplined routines and technique.

CHILDREN ARE CONNECTED WITH, AND CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR WORLD:

Every daycare class, our dance program finishes with a moment of slow breathing and positive affirmation. We put our hands on our heart and say “I am kind”. Grow our muscles big and strong and say “I am strong!”. We then close our eyes and the teacher asks all children to think of various people in their lives that they might love (a mum or a dad, a grandparent, aunts or uncles, cousins, teachers, friends, pets etc) and we say “I am loved”. This is a fantastic way for children to be reminded that they are part of a wider community and have a network of people who care for them.

CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF WELLBEING:

Many of our weekly themed childcare classes focus on social, emotional and physical well-being. We learn about emotions via a fun activity where we identify a feeling and ask the children to create a dance that reflects that feeling. We also include activities focusing on the importance of washing hands and brushing teeth and road safety, all promoting physical well being. We also dedicated several weeks of the year pretending to travel the world with the kids and discovering new dance and music from all different cultures. This gently encourages children of all backgrounds to feel a sense of social well-being. We find the children get very excited when we recognise dance from a country that is a part of their origin.

CHILDREN ARE CONFIDENT AND INVOLVED LEARNERS:

Our Learn and Grow dance program is designed in a way to invite all children to participate in the early learning process. Every lesson we have floorwork and will have a theme for floorwork. We can do exploring the garden, the jungle, the ocean or discovering weather patterns! We ask the children to ‘help us’ discover the themes every week. For example, we ask ‘what kind of animal am I thinking of?’ and give hints for the kids to guess, before asking the children to reenact how the animals might sound or move. We find this is a great way to make learning seem fun and is also a great way to encourage confidence by asking children to speak up in their group.

CHILDREN ARE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS:

Much of the focus on communication development comes from our own communication to the children. In our program, we have a loose ‘script’ of phrases and ways of explaining concepts of dance and music to encourage communication with the children. Our teachers will use rhyming and songs to teach children about the predictability of verbal sequences and patterns.