Why Join a Baby Dance Class? – Tappy Toes

Have you been thinking about joining a baby dance class with your baby? I bet you’ve never thought of, or even heard of a baby dance class? I’m here to tell you why a Tappy Toes Baby Dance Class could be the perfect activity for your 6-month-old!

The Benefits of a Baby Dance Class

Dance classes have a wide range of benefits for both the body and the mind. As your child grows, dancing can increase your child’s flexibility and range of motion, as well as their physical strength and stamina. Development in these areas can also help children with sports and other activities outside of the dance studio.

BUT why start a dance class with your baby when they are only just sitting up? Tappy Toes is a 30-minute fun packed session that will get your baby bopping along, wiggling away and moving to the beat, helping develop strength in their little bodies and encourage communication skills.

We use a variety of music, from pop songs to nursery rhymes and everything in between. Parents will be expected to join in with their little one and dance along with them. This means you’ll be releasing those lovely ‘feel-good’ endorphins and so will your baby.

Our classes start from babies age 6 months, to toddlers and pre-schoolers, and most recently we introduced our Key Stage 1 syllabus for school aged children up to Year 2. This means your child could start dancing with us at 6 months old, and move all the way up through our syllabus as they grow.

No one can resist smiling when watching babies and toddlers dancing to music. They just don’t have any inhibitions like us adults. But did you know that dancing really benefits babies and toddlers? Dancing and music aren’t just fun ways to pass the time. In fact, dancing helps children develop communication skills, self-expression, focus, rhythm and musicality. Learning to dance also builds confidence and self-belief.

Physical Development

Physical activity is essential for children. Dance engages the entire body, from head to toe. Dancing teaches skills like balance, coordination, better posture and body control. The cardio aspect of dance also strengthens the heart and lungs, which is linked to reducing stress, fighting off disease and illness, and or course, physical strength and fitness levels. Starting dance at a very young age mean your child is more likely to carry it on into their teenage years and let’s face it, having a teenage child who has an active hobby like dance can only be a good thing!

• Increased muscular strength, endurance and aerobic fitness.
• Improved coordination.
• Better agility.
• Increased flexibility.
• Healthy blood pressure.
• Improved balance.
• A deeper understanding of spatial awareness.
• Improved condition of heart and lungs.

Social Awareness in a Baby Dance Class

Tappy Toes provides a safe and nurturing environment for your baby, toddler or pre-schooler to feel comfortable and get used to social settings. During the class we work on turn-taking, sharing, tidy up time (Handing back props). They learn to understand and value working as a team and cooperating with each other to make the parachute work for example. Our ‘twirl’ section of the class encourages them to perform independently, supporting and encouraging other dancers by recognising and applauding their efforts. These social skills are important to learn early on, and your child will grow into a more effective communicator in the future.

Communication Skills

Dance helps children learn to communicate by incorporating rhymes, lyrics, songs with actions, body language, expression through movement, and interaction with others. They learn how to listen, wait their turn and perform. We actively encourage them to be creative and use their imaginations with the use of imagery for our exercises. For example, we might be dipping our toes in the pond and asking the children ‘What’s in the pond?’, or perhaps we open our legs out wide like a crocodile mouth and ask the children to snap them shut and tell us what they caught!

By calling out a register each lesson and asking the children to wave or call out a response helps develop not just their communication skills, but also their confidence. For a baby dance class this is a great way to get the children to listen for their name and respond. Some of our babies do their first wave or take their first steps in a Tappy Toes class.

Cognitive Development in a Baby Dance Class

Gaining an awareness of how to function in the world and using movement as a response to a problem or idea are two areas of cognitive development your child will learn through a Tappy Toes toddler class. The use of imagery within our classes means your child will be working on leg extension, stretching feet and ankles, learning ballet port de bras (arm movements) and so much more, while in their heads they are creeping through a forest, searching for different creatures or catching butterflies and gentle releasing them and watching them fly away. This teaches them problem solving, transferring body weight, balance, imagination, space recognition, and so much more. These creative solutions help children handle decisions and responsibilities in the real world with confidence and effectiveness.

Self-Expression

We’ve all experienced a tantrum-ing toddler right? Tell me I’m, not alone!  Music and dance teach kids healthy ways to release their emotions and express their feelings. Tappy Toes children’s dance classes provide an outlet for babies and toddlers to ‘let themselves go’ and release any pent-up energy in a creative and safe way. Dance can help our little ones express themselves, before they are even able to form words. This is particularly true in a baby class, as the children can’t yet speak. They get to express themselves through the music and props that we use. It’s an absolute joy to see their little legs kicking away as they shake a pompom, or bang on the drums!

Join a Baby Dance Class and Watch Them Bloom and Grow

Tappy Toes toddler and baby dance classes offer a three-week trial period, so you can really make sure your child enjoys it, before signing up for a term. We introduced this three-week trial period as a one-off drop in session really doesn’t give you a proper sense of how your child will settle into the class. It is usual for a baby or toddler to feel overwhelmed when starting a new activity. It’s a new place, new people, new teacher.

Sights and sounds are different and sometimes this can result in your little one not fully engaging in the class. We think it would be a real shame to give up after just one session, so the three-week trial allows you to come back again and give them another chance to settle. You will notice real progress over the three weeks, so much so, we are confident that you will want to join us for the term!

Book Now: https://www.tappytoes.com/