Current #ConfettiMOOD: Kindness!

This post is sponsored by our kind friends at DanceStudioOwner.com

You always remember the people who are kind to you. Just like Maya Angelou’s famous quote, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

As studio owners and dance teachers, we want our dancers to leave our classrooms feeling great about themselves, and we certainly want them to feel happy and positive about their dance experience. And as leaders, it’s up to us to set the tone for our studios and dance classrooms. If we want our teachers, dancers and our studio as a whole to project kindness, we have to lead the charge to create that positive studio culture. We have to cultivate kindness!

So this month, inspired by our #ConfettiMOOD: Kindness, we partnered with DanceStudioOwner.com to identify specific actions you can take at your studio to throw kindness around like confetti! We also created these fun coloring pages together, illustrated by artist Cathy Mingus. See below for a fun idea to use in your classes to spread kindness!

DanceStudioOwner.com is the leading online resource for dance studio owners world-wide. DanceStudioOwner.com’s team of experts provide information and inspiration for dance studio owners to start, run, and grow their businesses. Whether you are in the process of opening your studio, have a couple years under your belt or are an experienced, longterm studio owner, the resources you gain as a member are priceless! And keep reading, because they are giving away a membership to one lucky reader of this post!

Becca & Dani with Suzanne Blake Gerety of Dance Studio Owner!

The world can always use a little more kindness, and one of the greatest things about being kind is that it doesn’t cost a thing! And, kind studio owners attract kind dance teachers … who inspire kind dancers … who grow into kind humans! Everyone loves kind humans. Be a kind human!

Kind Studio Owners

The proverbial buck stops with you. Be kind when you are walking the hallways of your studio. Stop and say hello to the sibling waiting on his sister to finish dance class (even if he is coloring on your wall while standing with one leg on your table and the other on your cushion wearing dirty sneakers). Give your staff compliments, and tell them thank you! Hire dance teachers who are also kind and truly want and love to work with kids. This will make spreading kindness so much easier!

Kindness spreads outside your studio walls as well. How well do you know the other studio owners in your community? You shouldn’t merely see these women (and sometimes men!) as competitors. You share SO MANY things in common and could be such a great resource to each other! Your dancers likely go to the same schools, churches, and synagogues, play on the same sports teams, and live in the same neighborhoods, so many of them already know each other. We promise, it’s OK to be friendly with each other and still compete with each other (in both business and dance)!

So, where should you begin if you currently don’t know each other? Start by reaching out and ask to meet for coffee or breakfast. You could even plan it for the morning of a competition you will both (or all) be attending. At the very least, speak to each other at competitions! Encourage your dancers to congratulate their dancers on their performances. Acknowledge and congratulate their milestones and achievements on social media. You could also invite them to collaborate on a community performance, charity benefit or even joint-host a guest artist. Start somewhere, and work your way up to a positive relationship. Don’t dismiss this thought based on your assumptions of how they view you. Lead with kindness! Kindness wins!

Kind Dance Teachers

We all know that a little kindness goes a long way, so think about what a lot of kindness does for a person’s soul, especially a young person! There are lots of ways dance teachers can throw kindness around like confetti in dance class.

Make it Compliment Day! Designate a day as Compliment Day and take 10 minutes at the end of one class to give one heartfelt compliment to each dancer. You may need to plan ahead for this so you can give it forethought. You could even tell them at the beginning of class that you are going to have them perform their combo/routine multiple times, and you’ll be watching and taking notes on something positive about each person’s performance. This way, they will not feel self-conscious about you writing while they are dancing. Or, if you know each of their strengths well enough already, you can write them down before class.

You could also have the dancers give each other compliments. At the beginning of class, have each dancer draw one dancer’s name and tell them at the end of class they will compliment that dancer on anything they choose – dance, personality, style, etc. Our WOW Cards are great to use for your Compliment Day! You could even let your dancers select a WOW Card to give to the dancer and explain why they chose the one they did!

Another compliment activity is to tell dancers to wear a plain solid t-shirt to class (inform parents that this t-shirt will be written on!). Bring plenty of sharpies to class and have each dancer write something kind and complimentary on the back of each dancer’s t-shirt during class while she/he is wearing it. The dancers do not get to see what each dancer writes until they get home, and they will get to keep and remember these kind words forever!

Perform Outside Class! Give your classes an opportunity to participate in a community performance outside of class. Children’s hospitals and senior centers are two of many wonderful places where your dancers can share kindness and their love of dance with an appreciative audience. This will also bring awareness that your studio is more than just a local business but is truly engaged in your community.

Kind Dancers 

Kids already have so much kindness in their hearts, but we can bring out even more in dance class! To start, we should always encourage them to be kind to each other: Compliment each other, be inspired by each other rather than compete with each other and always talk to and include any new dancers in class. Consider recruiting two or three Kindness Ambassadors at your studio to help live out (and even craft) your kindness mission. They can serve as a resource or just a friendly face to new dancers and inspire others to be kind!

We created this super fun coloring page for your younger dancers! The bigger version is for your dancers to color and leave with you so you can create a fun Kindness Wall in your studio. For your elementary-aged and older dancers, the smaller coloring pages have four different KIND messages on them. Let them spend a few minutes coloring these in class, then have them go into another class and pass along the kindness to other dancers who inspire them! They will have so much fun spreading the kindness, and the dancers receiving the kind messages will love the sweet surprise!

If you really want to ROCK our #ConfettiMOOD: Kindness, you can host a Kindness Rocks Project at your studio for your dancers (if you aren’t familiar with the Kindness Rocks Project, watch this video)! You can hold the event on a Saturday morning and provide all the materials for painting and decorating rocks. Your dancers can write positive messages on the rocks while strategizing with other dancers on where they will hide their rocks around your community. You can even have some hidden at your studio! Make sure you add #thekindnessrocks to the back of your rocks so they can be tracked  through this greater project. To add more fun, you could also add your studio name and your own hashtag related to this project on the rock so the person who finds it can also trace it back to your studio!

We’re Feeling KIND! (Note: This contest from April 2018 is now closed)

It’s cool to be kind! Along with our friends and partners for this post, DanceStudioOwner.com, we are feeling KIND this month, so we want to throw kindness around like confetti, too! Any dance studios who implement one of these KIND initiatives during the month of April will have the opportunity to enter to win one of 4 AMAZING prizes! Here are the steps to follow:

1. Throw kindness around like confetti at your studio during the month of April doing any variation of at least one of the suggested kindness activities in this post
2. Post a photo on Instagram and/or Facebook using #bekindDSOxConfetti
3. Follow and Tag @dancestudioowner and @confettionthedancefloor

What will you win? Our amazing friends at DanceStudioOwner.com are giving away a FULL YEAR’S SUBSCRIPTION to their site! That’s a $400 value!! WOW! And, we are giving away one box of WOW Cards to 3 different lucky winners! In total, we will have 4 Kind winners. So, it is pretty cool to be kind.

Kind Playlist

Each month, we create a new ConfettiMOOD playlist on Spotify to help inspire us in class all month long. Our Kindness playlist for April is full of inspiring songs to match our mood! Check it out here!

Note: If you don’t already have a Spotify account, you will be asked to create one in order to access our list, but it’s FREE and EASY, and only takes a quick sec. Do it! While you are there, you can check out the playlists from all our previous ConfettiMOODs, too! It’s a never-ending supply of fun songs to use in dance class for all ages! 

#ConfettiMOOD: Kindness Inspo

Make sure you also check out our Pinterest Boards for even more Kindness inspo. While you are there, you can find so many fun ideas from all our past ConfettiMood Pinterest Boards – all loaded with fun + fresh ideas!

ConfettiMOOD: KINDNESS          ConfettiMOOD: WILD

ConfettiMOOD: SWEET                 ConfettiMOOD: BRIGHT

ConfettiMOOD: JOLLY                  ConfettiMOOD: TOGETHER

ConfettiMOOD: SPOOKY              ConfettiMOOD: PREPPY & PREPARED

ConfettiMOOD: AMBITIOUS         ConfettiMOOD: STAR SPANGLED

ConfettiMOOD: ZEN                     ConfettiMOOD: PARTY

ConfettiMOOD: SUNNY                ConfettiMOOD: LUCKY

ConfettiMOOD: PINK                   ConfettiMOOD: FRESH