Dance Teacher Press has creative books, posters, flashcards, coloring sheets, and other teaching tools for dancers.
Dance Teacher Press began with The Ballet Combination Book.
The Ballet Combination Book is a compilation of notes from years of teaching. Says founder, Janet Jerger, “I was constantly referring to my notes and thought many other teachers might enjoy them too.” Testing the market on ebay, teachers told Jerger it was a very helpful tool that they enjoyed for class planning.
“That was my first product,” says Jerger, “and since then I have created many new items for dancers and teachers. It has been a wonderful adventure to create beautiful items that make teaching dance easier and more enjoyable.”
The Giveaway
Dance Teacher Press would like to give away a Ballet Bundle to THREE Dance Advantage readers.
The bundle includes:
Ballet Step by Step, an illustrated ballet dictionary for students.
The 64-page book includes definitions, translations and pronunciations for more than 60 of the most basic ballet terms. The book is written in the order a class is conducted, beginning with etiquette and positions. Ballet Step by Step is Perfect bound, 8 x 8, 64 pages, and retails for $13.95.
The Ballet Combination Book contains over 250 combinations for the ballet class.
This book is designed to help you with a multitude of choices and ideas, ideal for those times when you find yourself teaching the same exercises week after week. It is also an indispensable tool for apprentice teachers. You’ll find basic technique ideas for young dancers, as well as more difficult combinations for the intermediate dancer. After you are familiar with the easy to read combinations, refer to it on the spot – even while teaching! The Ballet Combination Book is Perfect bound. 8 X 11, 58 pages, and retails for $21.95
You can read DA’s review of these two resources here. But wait, there’s more!
Words of the Week provides a visual display of ballet vocabulary.
Use “Words of the Week” as a reminder to discuss, define, and demonstrate vocabulary. This visual aid hangs like a spiral bound calendar and displays over 50 ballet terms or phrases. There are 18 displays with 2 to 4 phrases per display. Having the “Words of the Week” system helps insure you cover essential terms throughout the year. Words of the Week is Spiral Bound, 8.5 x 11 folded (Full display is 11 X 17), is printed on high quality gloss stock to last for years, and retails for $22.95.
The Ballet Bundle giveaway is open to U.S. residents 18 and over and closes at Midnight EST on Saturday, February 18.
How To Enter
This giveaway is closed but learn more about these and other fantastic teaching tools at www.DanceTeacherPress.com
Sign-in with the Rafflecopter form below using Facebook or your name and email. The widget will reveal multiple ways to earn entries.
The first, commenting on this post, is mandatory for entry (as always).
In this case, you’ll be asked to comment, and:
Describe how you end classes so that students go home inspired and excited to come back
Sign in, and click on Do It and you’ll see.
Upon entering, optional tasks for earning up to 10 additional entries will be revealed.
Complete as many as you like. Come back and Tweet once every day of the Dance Teacher Press Ballet Bundle giveaway.
Just make sure after each task you return and let us know you DID IT in the Rafflecopter form (don’t worry, it’ll save your other entries).
If you’re having trouble seeing the form, I suggest updating or trying another browser.
Winners will be announced within days of the giveaway’s close and will be contacted directly.
Please read our Giveaway Policy.
Tomorrow’s Giveaway:
Studio owners, as you try to manage it all, you won’t ever feel alone again with a DanceStudioOwner.com membership.
Nichelle Suzanne is a writer specializing in dance and online content. She is also a dance instructor with over 20 years experience teaching in dance studios, community programs, and colleges. She began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. As a Houston-based dance writer, Nichelle covers dance performance for Dance Source Houston, Arts+Culture Texas, and other publications. She is a leader in social media within the dance community and has presented on blogging for dance organizations, including Dance/USA. Nichelle provides web consulting and writing services for dancers, dance schools and studios, and those beyond the dance world. Read Nichelle’s posts.
We always end with a reverance, but I make a big deal out of it, even with the older students, and have them imagine themselves at the theater, waving to the people up in the balcony, see the flowers being thrown on stage, etc., etc. I like them to use their imaginations to the very end!
I always make sure to include a grand allegro for all levels, even if we are running out of time. All of the students love to leap!
Class is ended with a curtsy to say “thank you” and they all lin eup to recieve a stamp. Once a month they get a coloring page- which is always exciting to the little ones!
We end class with a reverence, thank yous and clapping….our young dancers receive stickers at the end of class.
We end class with a curtsy to say “thank you”.
We always end creative movement class with some type of “free dance” that uses the concepts that were worked on in that particular class. Then we form a circle and sing our good-bye song….”with my hands I say thank you (all clap), with my hands I say thank you (all clap), I walk up to my teacher and I curtsey (or bow) low, and in a clear voice I say THANK YOU!”
Reverance! It gives the girls a chance to really dance and be graceful as they just follow along. It is a cool down, as well as a wonderful way to bow to your “audience” and say thank you to your teacher. I would love the teaching materials, and I’m sure they would inspire my students as well!!
Reverance to honor the dancers themselves, the opportunity to be part of the wonderful art form of dance, and the teacher too. 🙂
Happy Valentine’s Day
What great resources
I end with reverence in ballet class, and a cool-down in other classes. Especially in jazz, I have them stretch and bend over to reach for their toes, commenting on how “stretchy” they are compared to when we warmed up, and how much “stretchier” they’ll be in the next class! I also make a big deal out of reverence, like they’re taking the final bow on stage.
Our young dancers always end with some sort of movement “game” provided they’ve earned it 😉 Sometimes its simply a song that dramatically changes tempo and they have to change their movement accordingly. We then conclude with reverence, thank you’s and clapping.
GREAT stuff!!! Love it!
Awesome ballet tools! We always do leaps or a grande allegro towards the end of each class, then finish with reverence. The first couple weeks I’ll lead the reverence, after that, I’ll let them do anything they want (in reverence fashion) which let’s them be creative, do something they wanted to do that we maybe didn’t get to in class that day, and it lets us see what we need to work on and where we can progress.
And of course, we’ll always leave them with a high five, some congratulatory/inspirational words, and a smile 🙂
We alwasy end with a reverence, but I make sure the last thing we do in class is a combination that helps the children feel the joy of truely dancing to music. After all the technical work, it does us no good if we have not felt the joy of movement to music! Sometimes I let the class make up an ending combo and we dance it in around, each student beginning when the student in front of them has finished the first step of the combo! it even works with my pre schoolers. so much fun!
We end class with stretching and a recap of vocabulary. I like to point out a success and what to work on at home to each student.
These products are the greatest. I use them all. I end class with my wee little ones with a bow and saying Merci Beaucoup! They leave doing a goodbye dance. The goodbye dance has to do with the concept we are working on for the month. February is emotion month. In the older students classes we always end with a Grand Allegro.
I teach a ‘Fairytale Ballet’ class for 3-4 year olds as part of the contract I’m on for my full-scholarship at my ballet school; this is my first year teaching and I would have never imagined that *I* myself would get as much out of it and learn as much from it as my students learn from me!
Anyway, to answer the question – I always end the class with a proper curtsy and a hug, because, well…that’s how a ballet class should always end! After that, I line the girls up single file and they give me a small hug as I give them a sticker. They always look forward to it and it’s my go-to for if they’re getting rowdy or restless during class: “If we don’t behave, we don’t get stickers after class…”
I also try to give them something to think about when they go home and over the week until our next class; right now, we’re learning our recital piece which is to the song, “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King, so I’ve been reminding them to watch the movie if they haven’t already and also to practice their lion faces in the mirror at home!
I always end Ballet class with a reverence for older kids (teens & up) and all classes curtsy (boys bow), and we clap and they say thank you. Very important! We do it in every class so they learn.
Before we do that, if they were taught new material, steps, words, I say what they learned to reiterate it.
I’m 18 and I teach ballet to the girls in my church dance team. Many of them do not have very much ballet training, so I teach them basic stuff mixed with what I learn every week in my ballet class.
I end each class with praise for their achievements in the days class and a sneek peek at some fun stuff we’ll do next week.
we end class with a cool down/reverence. I feel that the time to relax and reflect on what was learned and acheived in class is very important to the dancers, I then ask them to tell me what they feel they have acheived this class. It always makes them excited to be back next week!!
We teach dance classes to the community and to those who dance at church and/or those that are unable to afford ballet classes. To teach them to use their gifts and talents for good. I believe these items from Dance Teacher Press will help us with our teaching and learning technique. I have all their items in my amazon wishlist. 🙂 We have four different classes, but mostly we end with a review of what we did, and then a sneak peak of the choreography for the next class and then finally with prayer and reverence.
The younger children always pick a dance related activity at the end of class. We will freeze dance or do the Hokey Pokey. For older students I will sometimes give them a list of “homework” exercises to do-explaining how this will make them grow as dancers.
I always end ballet classes with a reverance. I like to let one of the students lead every once and awhile. It gives them a sense of importance and makes them feel good to contribute to the class.
I’m not a teacher, but my kids competition teachers usually have them do some improv dancing at the end of classes & then tells them something good. Then of course she tells them they better remember their dances for the next class, lol. (in a fun way, the kids either leave smiling or too wiped out to smile which is also a good thing)
I end classes by giving the kids “homework”- something that we did during class, that they can work in hit the following class. Sometimes it’s the same thing for everyone, sometimes it’s personalized!
For the little ones we end class with a curtsy and then they give themselves a hand. They then say “Thank you for class”, get a stamp and a hug and line up at the door. On their way out the door they must show me one at a time “the step” that we were working on in class (I tell them what I want them to show me). They must demonstrate that movement and then they get a coloring page with that step on it!
Depending on the age group I always end class with a goodbye song, a reverance, or a goodbye dance. I love having different endings because it keeps variety for me, plus they love it! 🙂
With my littles (under 10), we do a goodbye dance that includes shaking hands with fellow dancers and saying “thank you for a nice class”. With older students we always clap for each other.. leaving on a positive note!
In my daughter’s class they end with a reverance or a curtsy.
Great giveaway!