Archive for month: May, 2020

IT’S BRING YOUR PARENT TO CLASS WEEK!

Dust off your dancing shoes, parents! We wanna see your moves!

Your dancers have joined us week after week for virtual dance class, and now it’s your turn. So we wanted to give you our Top 3 helpful tips for a successful virtual dance experience with us:

1. Have your equipment ready before class
   What you’ll need: yoga mat, chair (barre), and your dancer :) Hydration is important, so, while it’s not required, we recommend bringing a water bottle, too.
2. Pin the teacher on Zoom
   To avoid distractions from other dancing families, be sure to pin the teacher as the biggest screen to watch.
3. Follow along
   This seems pretty obvious, but have you ever heard the phrase, “Monkey see, monkey do”? Well, your dancer will be watching you to see how well YOU participate in virtual class.  For those of you who feel you haven’t had success yet with getting your dancer to do virtual classes on their own, this is a GREAT way to show them how its done. It’s easy, simply listen and follow along.

**Other important things to note, not only for this class, but all virtual classes to come:**

As we head into our 9th week of virtual classes, many of you have expressed that it’s been a struggle to get your dancer excited for yet another virtual experience, staring at screen. We want to let you know… we TOTALLY get it, and it’s been a challenge for us as teachers, too!

We’re all craving human connection right now, which has been suddenly shrunk down to staring at pixels of people we were once able to hug and shake hands with only 50 something (who’s counting anymore???) days ago.  This is a new life experience for  all of us, so what we’ve perceived as “normal” might not necessarily be the same right now, and that’s O.K. It probably shouldn’t be.

One thing that remains true during this time, is that kids learn in many different ways, one of those being through observation. While it may not be your preference, even if your dancer is simply sitting, watching class, and eating a snack while they do, it is still a form of learning. So, we implore you to not be discouraged by your dancer’s lack of activity during class; rather, we’d encourage you to use Bring Your Parent to Class week to model the kind of behavior you’d like to see from them as we look ahead to the end of the season.

By dancing along side them, we’re hopeful that for those of you struggling with your dancer week after week, this opportunity will re-energize the both of you about how you want to finish out this dance season. Bring Your Parent to Class week can be EVERY week if you want it to be, because if you find that your overall experience with your dancer is more enjoyable when you’re with them, then you are more than welcome to come take class with them the rest of the season! We only have a few weeks left, so why not make the most of it?! Might be nice to switch up the routine a little bit ;)

We can’t wait to see you all on the virtual dance floor soon! BIG virtual hugs and kisses to you all! – The SD Atwater Team