Syllabus Contents:
- Introduction
- Learning Objectives
- Skills Overview
- Lesson Plans
- Teaching Strategies
- Playlist
Introduction
I’ve been teaching preschool hip hop dance classes for over five years now. This is one of the most fun classes to teach! The choreography can be super cute and the kids really engage with the high energy movements and songs. But when I first started, I felt in over my head trying to come up with solid curriculum and activities to pack the class. If you are in that boat right now, you are not alone! You are doing the right thing by researching and working to better yourself as a teacher.
There are a lot of times when teachers are expected to teach classes outside of their specialty. For me, hip hop was never my forte growing up, as my studio was more focused on ballet and jazz. This meant putting in extra work outside of teaching to further develop myself as a hip hop dancer. Hip hop is now one of my favorite and strongest styles, and I still take classes once a week to maintain the training.
My #1 advice to new hip hop teachers: Take adult hip hop classes as often as possible. This is the best way to grow and develop yourself as a teacher, especially if hip hop was never your forte growing up. Taking classes from different instructors will also help you keep choreography fresh and inspire new ideas to carry on to your students.
After my five years of experience teaching this specific class, I created a robust syllabus that balances dance education and fundamentals with fun and engaging activities.
Learning Objectives
Inspire Creativity – We want to instill and inspire creativity in our students by providing appropriate opportunities to explore and express through movement.
Improve Coordination – Coordinating movements between one’s arms, legs, head, chest, etc… takes a lot more skill and practice than one might think. This age group is just beginning to explore cross-body connections (Graham method callout), and other full-bodied movements. Take it slow and repeat, repeat, repeat.
Instill Discipline – We are not only building young dancers, we are also building productive and positive students! As teachers, we need to lead the class with structure, order, discipline, and abide by a clear set of rules. Explain all rules during the first week of class, and repeat them throughout the year.
Build Rhythm – Rhythm is a crucial component of being a great hip hop dancer. We need to start them young! Students will learn that dance is counted using counts of eight. By the end of the year they should have a solid grasp on counting music and ideally can clap/count on beat. See my teaching tips below for strategies on building rhythm in younger dancers.
Gain Exposure to Hip Hop Music & Culture – The main reason why I love teaching this class is because this is the first time many of the students get exposure to hip hop dance and music. Hip Hop is my favorite genre of music – Therefore, I believe it is super important as the teacher that I take time to find music that is appropriate for this group, but also true to the genre of hip hop. There is a balance between the two, and I want the students to walk away with a curiosity about hip hop that can be further explored and nurtured in an age-appropriate way.
Skills Overview
- Bounces
- Walking & Clapping on beat
- Snakes
- Shakes
- Slides (side-to-side & back-to-front)
- Isolations
- Top Rocks
- Step-Claps & Other Coordinated Claps
- Cross-Spin
- Smurf
- Body Rolls (Top-down and bottom-up)
- Grapevines
- 3 step turns
- Pivot turns
- Butt Spin
Semester Outline & Lesson Plans
| Link to Lesson Plan | Skill Focus |
| Lesson Plan #1 | Bounces & Step Clap |
| Lesson Plan #2 | Slides & Snakes |
| Lesson Plan #3 | Grapevines & Isolations |
| Lesson Plan #4 | 3 Step Turns & Top Rocks |
| Lesson Plan #5 | Pivot Turns & Skill Review |
Teaching Strategies
- In General: It can be hard to come up with new skills for this age group – My biggest advice for teaching this intro level class is to focus on introducing the students to the foundations of hip hop dance and technique. In other words, your focus for one class can simply be working on bounces, and mastering bending knees, using your chest and arms, all in one move. From there you can add variations in arms, change to double/triple bounces, and switch up the tempo. There are a few foundation skills that we like to hammer in this curriculum, but the overall approach is more focused on fundamentals of hip hop, including grooves, bounces, rocks, isolations, and more.
- Limit Across the Floor – In my experience, this class runs a lot smoother if we keep the majority of activities in the center floor, on our dot. Unless I have assistants, trying to do several things across the floor can get hectic. This age struggles with rotating skills from the mirror to across the floor. The kids also end up waiting a long time, and preschoolers are not prone to sitting quietly and waiting. I recommend doing 1-2 skills across the floor, and the rest do in center.
- Start super slow – Even when you are introducing step-clap, you want to hit the first body position and “freeze” until the entire class can match you, then you move on to the clap. Continue this pace until the class can maintain a half-time rhythm, and so-forth.
- Tips for Building Rhythm: (Eventually I will do a whole post on this topic, because there is a lot to discuss) Here is what I do with my preschool-aged dancers. I have everyone sit down in a circle, and I explain to the class that “In dance, we count music to the number eight. So we count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then we go back 1! We don’t go on to 9, 10, and 11.” I repeatedly count to 8 out loud, and have the whole class join. Then I put on an instrumental song with a slower tempo and clear beat, and start clapping and counting out loud on beat. I have the whole class join in. Once we are comfortable, I will change songs to a different tempo. You want to do this as often as possible to build their rhythm – not just during the beginning of the year!
- Incentivize – I use stickers or stamps to encourage good behavior, enthusiastic participation, quick transitions, and more. I avoid doing “participation” stickers at the end of class, because I don’t want to detract from the significance of these in-class rewards.
- Keep it fun! They are still very young and need a balance between recreation and instruction to maintain their attention. In between transitioning between across the floor and center floor, I sprinkle in something fun like “Simon says” (using only hip hop movements) or an improv/freestyle activity.
- Use instrumentals – New movements combined with overstimulating music can be overwhelming, so when I introduce a new movement to students, I always have them start by practicing to instrumental beats only, without any words. This helps the dancers to focus on their movement and it makes it easier for them to eventually match that movement to the rhythm of the song.
- Don’t be so serious – Hip Hop for preschoolers, in my opinion, is all about getting them to love dance. Have them practice making silly faces in the mirror. Think of a random animal and have them try to dance like said animal. Be creative and the students will follow suit.
