A Jaw-Some Baby Shark Activity for Dance Class!

by on Feb 1 '19

It’s an extra fun time at our studio right now because we are in the middle of a SHARK-tacular week of promoting our summer dance camps! We’re super excited to announce our summer schedule to our customers and especially excited about the new Camp Confetti themes we’ll be offering at Rhythm this summer. Check out our earlier blog post if you missed our announcement of FOUR new themes in addition to the existing 12 (and hurry because the discounted rates on the new themes end on 2/25)!

Make Summer Dance Camp Fun!

We love to make a huge SPLASH when we announce summer, and of course we have to create a fun theme for the week, give away extra discounts for those who register and, in general, make it a summer party that gets everyone excited about summer classes!

Believe it or not, January and February is a FIN-tastic time to promote your summer camps at your studio! You want to be ahead of all the other activities you’re competing with for summer attention before your dancers and potential customers make all their summer plans! You can hear more about how we make summer not only fun but also profitable on the podcast that we are guest hosting for 8 weeks (Clint Salter’s Transform My Dance Studio), where our recent episode–Sunny Summers– provides 10 Ideas for a Profitable and FUN Summer at Your Dance Studio!!

Our fun theme to announce the summer schedule this year at Rhythm is #rhythmsharkweek and we’re doing all things UNDER THE SEA to SHELL-o-brate! We are so excited about this fun dance activity we’re using in our preschool classes that we wanted to share it with you, too!

If you haven’t heard the Baby Shark tune yet, you certainly have been hiding under a coral reef! It’s very, errrr, catchy and clingy?? Well, let’s just say that the little ones all ADORE it, and you’ll likely be working overtime to come up with another song, ANY song, to get this one out of your head! Just us?! In all seriousness, the song can be adorable and, thankfully, with our fun activity, we trust you’ll survive this tune with no actual shark bites and LOTS of JAW-some smiles from your littles!

To get started, create three sizes of Shark Fins for the kids to wear for this activity. One will be “baby shark” size (maybe in pink), one a little bigger for “mommy shark” (maybe purple) and a larger one for “daddy shark” (maybe blue). And don’t worry, we’ve provided a supply list and step-by-step guide for this DIY craft below the activity.

SHARK BITES

This activity will take the dancers in a zig-zag formation back and forth across your studio floor. Start by having all your dancers line up on the left side of the room with your first dancer wearing the “baby shark” fins. Place the “mommy shark” fins on the right side of the room and “daddy shark” on the left side of the room, but a little further upstage. As they travel across the room and reach the other side, they will change into the next size fins.  The size fins they are wearing will dictate what size steps or movement they will do. Below are examples of traveling steps across the floor for each fin size.

Baby Shark: Tiny little scoots with feet together (think alternating baby heel drops while traveling), leaning forward with hands together like a fin on top of their head. Scoot for 6 counts and stop to clap hands together, keeping wrists connected, like a little chomping shark on 7-8. Continue this pattern until they reach the end of the floor and put on the Mommy Shark fin.

Mommy Shark: Hop on the right leg for 6 counts, do 2 big digs with left foot on 7-8 with big straight-armed shark chomping. Repeat on other leg and continue alternating until they reach the end of the floor, and put the Daddy Shark fin on.

Daddy Shark: Dig right heel, drop right toe, repeat on left, repeat on right, repeat on left…all with big chomping arms.  Arms open on the dig and chomp together on the toe drop. Do this 4 times for 8 counts, then hop with both feet together in a stationary circle for 4 counts.  Lastly, jump out onto both heels and back together two times 5-6, 7-8.  Arms will shoot out straight in diagonals like sharp shark teeth.  Repeat until they reach the end of the floor.

Note: If – for time, simplicity and/or budget purposes – you’d rather just create and use one pair of fins, that’s totally fine! You’ll just explain that the movement gets bigger each time and wait until the dancer wearing it makes their way through the full zig-zag course before passing the fins off to the next dancer.

BABY SHARK FIN CRAFTS

You can decorate the fish tail however you would like! Get creative!

Supplies:

  • Felt fabric from your local craft store (pink, purple and blue)
  • A few fun colored sheets of sparkly felt or foam
  • Elastic – any color

Let the crafting begin:

BACK FIN

  1. Create a rectangle base out of felt or foam, approximately 4×6
  2. Using foam, cut two long triangles into the shape of a shark fin (we used glitter foam so both sides would be sparkly!)
  3. Glue the two triangles together and glue the edge to the base.
  4. Hot glue elastic loops to the corners of the base to create a backpack for dancers to wear their cute baby shark fins!

Bonus: You can add a third smaller triangle to the two triangles before gluing them together and stuff the center with tissue or paper towels to give it a three-dimensional look, if you choose!

TAIL FIN

  1. Cut the elastic to a length that will fit around a preschoolers waist.
  2. Draw a fin shape (much like the photo here) out of the felt fabric.
  3. Hot glue the top edge of the fin to the center of elastic.
  4. Decorate the fin by gluing a few different shaped cut-outs of colored felt/foam sheets.
  5. Close the elastic using hot glue to create a pull-on/skirt type fin.
Here’s a great view of the baby shark fin!

Whether you are promoting your summer camps now or later, you’ll love using this activity in your preschool/kindergarten dance classes any time of the year!

And remember, Camp Confetti can help take away your summer planning stress! Check out all 16 of our fun themes, and get to planning and promoting your summer schedules now so that your studio is filled with excited dancers all summer long!

p.s. Want more fun underwater activities for dance class? Check out one of our most popular blog posts from last year It’s an Underwater Disco-Quarium Dance Party! It’s the most fun + adorable disco party your tiny dancers could ever attend!


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