My students will only dance if they hold my hand, it's causing disruptions in class. How can I best structure a shorter 6-8 week dance session so all my students can feel challenged and nurtured.  Special Guest Maria Hanely A passionate advocate for early childhood dance education, Maria Hanley specializes in teaching ages 0 months to 6 years. She has left NYC to teach dancers in the greater Cleveland area. Currently, Maria is teaching early childhood classes at The Mandel JCC, Hudson Conservatory of Ballet, and virtual classes with BOLD Arts! Maria has designed and implemented creative ..read more

How can you teach class without a theme? Should you teach dance without a theme? How do you prioritize your class flow to ensure nothing important is missed? How can you structure a large class to ensure no child is missed? Special Guest Corey Lozier Corey Lozier is a dance teacher, studio owner, and dance education resource creator who specializes in tap dance for early childhood. Corey pulls from her hands-on experience with her students in the classroom and from her time in the professional dance world to create her resources and lesson plans. Corey is passionate about the benefits of imag ..read more

Should students be in charge of preschool dance classes? I will cover this topic and more with special guest Erin Burd as we answer some problems, struggles and questions from dance teachers and studio owners! Special Guest Erin Burd: Erin Burd, is a Dance Studio Strategist, Author and Speaker. She started Birdy’s Kids In Motion in 2009 and grew her mobile dance company to serve 3 counties in California. Erin is passionate about paying it forward and launched Erin Burd Coaching, and now Dance Studio Empire where she has taught thousands of studio owners and educators to launch and grow their ..read more

Welcome to Season 6 of the Dance to Learn Podcast - The Preschool Dance Teacher’s Podcast! I’m your Host Jessica Strong! I am so excited for this season, because I’m introducing a new format! This season is all about YOU! I am answering your questions, providing help and guidance with your biggest struggles in the studio setting and I’m inviting Industry Leaders as guests to discuss your biggest challenges and provide you with guidance, support and resources to help you in your journey as a Dance Educator!  Season 6 Premieres on our new day and time - Thursday November 9th with my feature ..read more

In today's episode, your host, Jessica Strong, is sharing her tips and advice for successfully teaching young children dance on a digital platform. How do children learn from behind a screen? How can we use their screen time learning habits to formulate the best course of action to keep them engaged while in an online setting. In this Podcast I share 5 ways to keep them engaged including an incentive with an online sticker chart. We use Canva (Here's a friendly referral link: (https://www.canva.com/join/kiss-stitch-dartboard). Here's the Canva Sticker Chart Template we use in our classes. Fee ..read more

In today's Podcast Episode, I wanted to talk about one of the key takeaways from last week's podcast interview with Allison Mell from Tots and Target. Did you know that the CDC recently removed crawling as a developmental milestone? As a dance teacher, this is really concerning! Crawling provides so many benefits to young children, not just in the physical sense but also for their brain and sensory development! What can we do as dance teachers to help students who may have skipped the crawling phase, or performed a-typical crawling patterns without being corrected. Listen to today's episode fo ..read more

In today's Podcast Episode, I have the privilege  of interviewing Allison Mell with Tots on Target, a Physical Therapist who works side by side with Mary Deutsch, a Licensed Occupational Therapist to help parents understand how their children grow and develop. I recently completed their Babies on the Move course which was BRILLIANT (it's linked below) and I was captivated about the section on red flags and crawling. So it had me wondering, how can some of these "red flags" present themselves in the later years, the years of 3, 4 and 5 when dancers are ready to sign up for dance classes fo ..read more

Hello Dance Teacher Friends! Happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of the Dance to Learn® Podcast! I’m your host Jessica Strong and today I wanted to talk about limiting distractions inside the dance studio. I started my teaching career teaching in both a studio setting as well as inside schools such as private preschools and public elementary schools. Teaching in a school setting taught me a lot on how unnecessary some “essential” tools inside the dance studio are really not necessary at all for younger and beginning level dancers and can really be more of a distraction than a benefi ..read more

Hello Dance Teacher Friends! Happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of the Dance to Learn Podcast, I’m your host, Jessica Strong - I’m excited to be here with another episode of the podcast. Today I’m going to be talking about how we can be more assertive in the classroom and how changing what we say and how we say it can have a major impact on Classroom Management.  To be a Guest on the Podcast or for Advertising Inquiries, please email info@dancetolearn.co  The Dance to Learn Podcast airs every Wednesday at 9:00am MT on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. Leave a 5 star review of ..read more

Good Morning! Welcome to the Dance to Learn® Podcast with your host Jessica Strong! The Dance to Learn Podcast is the place for dance educators and studio owners to get the best dance teacher resources, tips and advice to help you dance, learn and grow right along with your students. Let’s get into today’s episode.  In today's Podcast episode, I will be discussing Separation Anxiety, What it is, what it isn't, some of the symptoms and how our brain develops to help children regulate separation anxiety. I'm also sharing how we as dance teachers and studio owners can build a system to buil ..read more