ANNOUNCEMENT: WE WILL BE CLOSING OUR DOORS ON DECEMBER 31, 2024. YOU HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 31, 2024 TO PURCHASE ANY ITEMS AND ENROLL IN ANY COURSES. YOU WILL HAVE ACCESS TO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE PURCHASED OR ENROLLED IN UNTIL JANUARY 31, 2025.

Teaching little ones can be hard. I get it. I’ve been there. Where lesson planning took up all of my time and my students still weren’t paying attention.

Hi! I’m Ashley! Founder and owner of Once Upon a Ballet.

I had students who talked during what seemed like ALL of class. I had students who wandered around the room instead of participating. There were students who decided to do their own dance instead of waiting their turn in line.

And the worst part was, my students who did actually pay attention and were naturally eager to learn were getting frustrated because I had no idea what a truly developmentally and age-appropriate class was. I was making them to too much technique and technique that was way too advanced.

I was tired. I was frustrated too. Dance had been my life. I loved dancing and I couldn’t figure out how to transfer that over to a toddler and preschool dance class.

Why was this so hard?

I desperately wanted my students to be happy. To enjoy to coming to my class.

I wanted to be the preschool dance teacher at my studio that all of the parents requested. I wanted my students to want to pay attention and to want to learn. I wanted them to be so excited to come to class that they couldn’t wait from one week to the next.

One day, I realized something. There was one type of activity that always kept my students’ attention.

What was it? Anything we did related to fairy tales. As time went on, I realized something else. It wasn’t that it was fairy tales, per say, but that I always had my students role playing when we did anything with fairy tales.

I started doing more and more story-based dance classes. At first, my classes were a mix of different themes and stories. They were still engaging, but where the real magic happened was when I began teaching so that each class was a single theme or story. We’d explore oceans in one class and blast off into outer space in the next. We’d swim with mermaids or fly with Peter Pan. We’d get ready and go with Cinderella to the ball.

Then I became a mama and I began to understand that dance can do so much more for children than teach them movement and creativity. It should be fun and magical. It should prepare them for a structured ballet or dance class later on. BUT it should also foster their development.

Movement is so important for young children. It helps their bodies AND their brains to grow and develop. It helps them to learn about themselves and the world surrounding them. Children are meant to move. They’re meant to climb and jump and balance.

Movement directly relates to brain development. When a child jumps, for example, she is doing more than just building strength in her feet and legs. More blood flows to her brain from the physical activity, and she is using the same part of her brain that controls focus, attention and concentration. She is improving her attention span too!

And all of this is why I’ve crafted each story-based activity and lesson plan in Once Upon A Ballet to teach dance to toddlers and preschoolers with fun, imagination, AND age-appropriate child development in mind. Dance activities and lesson plans are story-based and set to the most beloved stories, themes, and fairy tales.

 LET’S MAKE CHILDREN’S DANCE MAGICAL

All of our curriculums are designed to keep your students engaged through fun themes, stories, and imagination. Let’s take the boring out of children’s dance while still giving your students a strong foundation when it comes to skills and technique!