"Follow Your Heart and You will Find a Way.”
Today, I’d love to introduce to you, Naomi Roberts! Naomi is the owner of NA Dance Company in NSW, Australia. She uses the Once Upon A Ballet materials in her preschool-aged classes and says she really enjoys having a curriculum, as well as lesson plans set out for each theme.
“The lesson plans allow the freedom to build continuity as well as being easily adaptable to lesson duration. I found this helps to break down the lessons and allows for alternate weeks of routine, keeping our students engaged.”
Naomi has been a dance teacher since she was 18, and has owned her own studio for 5 years now. Her favorite class to teach is her Tiny Tot ballet class (2.5 to 4 years old). Like many of us, she finds so much joy and a sense of achievement in teaching that class. She really enjoys seeing the development and growth of her students, in technical ability and in life and mental ability as well. In fact, last year her Tiny Tots class performed on stage without even having a helper! She was so proud of them as they only glanced over to the side to make sure she was there for them.
Naomi lives with her husband. They hope to have a family one day, as well as a house with the land where they can become self-sufficient, to some extent. (I love this goal, and my family and I are actually hoping the same!)
Naomi’s advice to us is to have perseverance and patience. “If you are passionate about something, follow your heart and you will find a way. Be kind to yourself when things aren’t ‘seeming’ to set in pace and keep preserving.” I completely agree.
Happy Dancing!
Ashley Hartford
Founder + Owner, Once Upon a Ballet
Want to know more about me?
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What We’re All About
At Once Upon a Ballet, we want to help you teach dance in a way that sparks your students’ imaginations, keeps their attention, and has them leaving class excited for what’s next.
DANCE CURRICULUMS
Our complete curriculums for toddler and preschool dance and children’s ballet give you a full year of lesson plans for each age group. Our lesson plans are rooted in child development and teach dance through imagination and play. We strongly emphasize correct, age-appropriate ballet techniques for young children, as well as building self-esteem, creativity, problem-solving, and classroom skills.
CERTIFIED TEACHERS
If you teach toddler or preschool dance, our teacher certification course gives you the tools to better connect with your littlest students, keep their attention, and have better classroom behavior.
LICENSED STUDIOS
For our licensed studios, we provide branding and marketing support to help them grow their classes that use our curriculums.