Dance Warm-Ups

I really enjoyed the many warm-ups we did in class before every dance class as well. Therefore I decided I could use a list to reference back to in the future. Many of these warm-ups can be done with students of any age and require little to no prep work which is great to start off a lesson.

Name game:
- students stand in a circle
- each student says the names of the people before them in the circle and then say their name with an action they choose
- the teacher can then use those actions to create dance activities

Grab Bag Moves:
- students move around the classroom in their own space.
- pull out a series of objects from a “grab bag”, e.g., rubber ball, toy train, animal puppets, airplane drawing.
- students move around the room, moving like the object.

Moving Body Parts:
- sitting on a chair the students follow the movements by the teacher

Head to Toes:
- a great warm up where students follow the teacher's movements
- this is also a great warm-up for younger students learning the names of different body parts