Teaching Dance to Children in a Positive, Inspirational Way
Walk into Autumn Cantrell’s North Carolina dance studio and you’ll be swept into a world of creativity and inspiration. “I try to be as creative as possible… keeping the studio space very positive and inspirational too. We have all kinds of cute things in there, motivational things,” she tells us. Autumn opened her studio, Creative Republic Dance Academy, in 2016. In the years since, she’s found a passion for passing along knowledge to her students and watching them grow.
“It’s a slow process, but [I love] watching them make it their own over the months and the years and getting better and better, especially the ones who started with me knowing absolutely nothing about dance,” Autumn reflects. “Watching them grow… and seeing that look on their face when they finally get stuff, they’re like, ‘Oh, I can do this!’ It's a long process but I love seeing that, seeing them take what I teach them and run with it.”
When Autumn found the Once Upon A Ballet curriculum, she was already using metaphors, stories and rhymes in her classes. But with OUB, she could now connect her classes to one story and theme. One of the immediate changes she noticed was that her student’s attention spans improved, they were more engaged. “It completely changed all of my preschool classes, because up until then it had been quite difficult to hold their attention,” Autumn tells us. “OUB saved me in those classes for sure.”
Alongside increased attention spans, Autumn found that the OUB curriculum and training helped her understand where her students should be developmentally at each age, and how to get there. “It was really cool, reading and learning all about how children’s brains develop and at what ages… It really helped me understand where to go with games and lesson planning, even with my older students… It was very interesting, very eye opening.”
Having grown up with a mother who was a dance teacher and studio owner, Autumn’s own dance journey began at a young age. “I started taking classes and just fell in love, and I started taking it fairly seriously around fourteen,” Autumn reflects. At fourteen Autumn began dancing every day, and by seventeen she was teaching students. She soon after opened her studio, Creative Republic Dance Academy. “I love dance so much, there wasn’t really anything else I could see myself doing.”
Having been through the OUB Certified Teacher course, Autumn reflects that one of the biggest ways it’s impacted her teaching is in how she handles disputes between children. “Learning about brain development… it’s helped me really understand where kids are and why they’re reacting in a certain way if they’re having a bad day or something is going on…It’s helped me keep the flow of class going and be very understanding with kids that are having a bad day or a harder time with focus.”
When we asked Autumn what her favorite part about the OUB curriculum was, she told us: “I love how creative it is, and I love that it’s a storyline, because I love storytelling… It's hard for little kids to sit there and listen to you read to them, but when you’re dancing it out then they’re instantly involved and they love it.”
Autumn is one of Once Upon a Ballet's Contributing Teachers and helping with our upcoming curriculum releases and updates. This article was written by Once Upon a Ballet Community Manager, Olivia Wickstrom.
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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.
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