Teaching Children Dance

Teaching Children Dance is back and better than ever. The fourth edition of this text retains everything dance educators have loved in previous editions while providing significant updates and new material.

What’s New in This Edition?

New material in the text—which contains learning experiences for physical education, dance, and classroom settings and is geared toward K-12 students of all ability levels—includes the Other new material includes suggested answers to chapter-ending reflection questions; updates to discussions on dance and the whole-child education initiative; new material on how 21st-century skills promote creative thinking, collaboration, communication, global awareness, and self-direction; and a description of the link between dance and the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans .

Dance an Inherent Component of Education

“This latest edition of Teaching Children Dance brings a new perspective focused on dance as an inherent component of a child’s education,” says coauthor Susan Flynn. “Since our last edition, educational issues have refocused on students gaining knowledge and skills that can be applied to all aspects of their lives. Dance is one mode for learning that involves using the body and the senses to gather information, communicate, and demonstrate conceptual understandings.”

Book Organization

The text is organized into two parts, with part I’s seven chapters providing the foundation for developing dance learning experiences and offering ideas for planning a yearlong program, a unit, or a single lesson. Part II contains two chapters of creative dance learning experiences and two chapters on choreographed learning experiences. Each learning experience includes learning outcomes; ideas for the introduction and warm-up, development, and culminating dance; variations and adaptations; and assessment suggestions that are directly linked to each outcome.

Fun Learning for All Ability Levels

Teaching Children Dance offers dance instructors insight into designing lessons for students of all skill levels, including those with disabilities, and provides a variety of teaching strategies, assessment tools, and instruction on effective demonstrations—all to make the learning experience fun and motivating for the dancers.

“We’ve developed learning experiences that encourage creativity, positive social interaction, and motor skill development,” says Flynn. “Students view dance as a way to have fun. This opens the door for dance to be a welcomed activity in the school curriculum.”

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