Teaching Primary Ballet

Certification Course

Welcome to our course, Teaching Primary Ballet! In this course, you’ll learn how to teach ages 5 to 7 in a way that prepares them for a true beginning ballet class. I’ll teach you how to balance fun (but still meaningful) activities in your class with the more technical side of ballet. We’ll begin with a little bit of teaching philosophy, then cover each aspect of the class itself.

Here’s to teaching amazing Primary Ballet classes!

Ashley Hartford
Founder + Director
Once Upon a Ballet / Children’s Ballet Method

Step 1: Welcome Survey

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Step 2: The Course

Contents

Course Documents

Lesson 1: Where are your 5 to 7 Year Olds, Developmentally?

 
 

Lesson 2: Your Lesson Plan Flow, Balancing Types of Activities

 
 

Lesson 3: Remember, Your Lesson Plan is Just a Plan

I mentioned this in our last lesson, but really wanted to make sure it’s not overlooked. 

My number one piece of advice to those who teach young kids—remember that your lesson plan is just a lesson plan. If you stick to my advice in the last lesson, your class will flow between the more technical sections and the more fun sections that let your students move and express themselves. 

This will set your class up for success, but there will be days when your students may have longer attention spans and you can spend more time on centre barre, centre allegro, or learning a recital dance. There will be days when your students have shorter attention spans and you might have to skip one section and come back to it. You might need to add an extra free dance into the mix. It’s okay to change your plans once you get into class if you see it’s needed.

Also, remember to have some backup activities planned for each class. I like to have 3 to 5 backup activities that I can use for any class. That way, I don’t need to rethink or relearn new backup activities for each new lesson plan I’m teaching. These activities are usually ones that have been class favorites in the past. And when I say I “have them ready”, that simply means I have any props I might need and I have music available. I’ll add the same 3 to 5 songs for my backup activities to my current playlist for the lesson so I can find them quickly.

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Lesson 4: Before Your Class Begins

Before your class begins, make sure your dance classroom is free from distractions. Props should be picked up and stored or prepped for class. In the Once Upon a Ballet curriculums, we still don’t use ballet barres in this age group. Your students will do a “centre barre”, but this is a set of barre exercises that are done standing in centre. So if you have free standing ballet barres, make sure they are out of the way. By this age, your students should know better than to hang on the barres. But don’t hesitate to remind them, if needed.

Have your music ready for class. (We’ll cover choosing music for your Primary Ballet class later on.) Have your lesson plan ready. Like I said earlier, I like to have several backup exercises and activities ready as well. Backup exercises and activities are simply ones you have ready to use in class even though you don’t plan on using them. Think of them as your understudies.

Also make sure you have goals in mind for both you as a teacher and for your students. Here is your goals worksheet and lesson planning worksheets. They are very similar in format to the ones in the toddler section of the course. However, what you would include in your lesson plans would be different for your preschool dance classes.

Goals Worksheet for Primary Ballet

Lesson Planning Worksheet for Primary Ballet

Coming up, we’ll go in depth on each element to include in your Primary Ballet classes for 5 to 7 year olds. I’ll also include examples of how to bring a little magic and imagination to them each class section.

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Lesson 5: Greeting Your Students + Beginning Class

This is when you’ll welcome your students into your dance classroom. You’ll greet your students at the doors. Teach them to line up before entering your dance classroom. As you greet them, make sure you appear happy to see them. This will immediately start your class on a positive note. 

Tell your students to go to where you’ll be taking roll and (optionally) doing a share time and/or story time. After the first few weeks of class, give them a step to do. It might be passé walks, marches, runs en demi pointe, or graceful walks.

Next, take roll. You can combine this with share time. Give each student a chance to answer a question or share something about their day or week with you when you call on them for roll call. This may seem small, but it can be great for creating connection with your students. 

Optionally, if your class centers around a story, you can briefly read an excerpt from that story to your students during this time. Keep it short, of course. If you’re teaching a well-known fairy tale, you might even ask your students what comes next in the plot. Many of your students will already know and love sharing that.

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Lesson 6: Circle Stretch

This is where the “dance” part of class really begins. I like to start by having students make a circle. Have your students hold hands (optional, but it will help your circle stay intact). Pretend to blow a giant bubble as you slowly walk backward to make your circle bigger. Say, “Pop!” Pretend your bubble has popped and quickly shrink your circle. Repeat several times.

Next, we’ll travel in a circle. This is just to get them moving and warm their bodies up. It’s only for 30 seconds or so. I’ll commonly start the year out with runs en demi point. Then I might move onto gallops, skips, prances, or pony trots. It really depends on what we’ve been working on. If I feel students might need a little extra practice on a particular traveling step, I’ll include that. Or if I feel like we haven’t done a certain traveling step in a while, I’ll have them do that. 

Then we do our actual circle stretch. I’ve walked you through each part of this in the video below. I do roughly the same stretch, etc. every class. It makes transitioning into class super easy because kids know what to expect. It’s not very long or very difficult, so you don’t have to worry as much about attention spans.

 
 

I have found the most seemless transition from stretch to centre barre is to let students do a brief free dance. This is simply a time to let your students move. Let them be creative and expressive. You’ll have another free dance later in class that will focus more on a particular concept or skills. This is a time to let your students move in between two class sections that require staying in one place. It helps your students get their bodies warm again if stretch time went a little long. This is also a great way to get your students from a circle to lines.

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Lesson 7: Centre Barre

If you follow our teaching method, you’ll introduce standing at an actual barre in the next level—for ages 7+. But you’ll work on a few barre movements during this portion of class. At this level, we officially introduce turnout. We cover that later in this course. Your students will do pliés in 1st and 2nd positions, rises and bourrée turns, tendus front and side from 1st position, piqués front and side from 1st position (as a preparation for dégagés), parallel passés, sways and sways with chassés, and a step into tendu derrière with 3rd arabesque arms. 

In the video below, I’ve covered each step you’ll teach during centre barre for ages 5 to 7. Originally, I was going to make a video only covering 5 to 7 year olds. But I wanted you to know where this age group should be coming from and the though process behind the progressions leading into it. So the video below includes all three Once Upon a Ballet age groups: tots, preschoolers, and this age group. Please, note, your exam will only cover information relating to 5 to 7 year olds. You are not required to know the tot or preschool progressions.

 
 

Lesson 8: Traveling

The traveling and free dance sections are where the themes and storylines of class lesson plans can really shine. In this lesson, we’ll talk all things traveling. Here, we integrate a big part of storytelling and roleplaying in this section of class. If you use our lesson plans, you’ll see that students are working on the same 10 to 15 traveling steps all year long, but they will do them in a different way with each lesson plan set. For example, they might do passé walks as seahorses floating gracefully through the ocean in our Little Mermaid lesson plan. They might pretend to climb Jack’s beanstalk as they passé walk in our Jack and the Beanstalk lesson plan. They continue to work on the same steps, but using their imaginations makes the step feel different and new! 

We also recommend doing a typical across-the-floor traveling pattern, traveling all together in a large circle, and/or using movement cards to also keep this section of class engaging.

For a typical across-the-floor traveling pattern, students wait their turn and travel one or two-at-a-time across the floor. You can incorporate movement cards into this option by letting students draw a card and do that movement across the floor.

You can also have your students travel in a large circle around the room. This is a great option on those shorter-than-usual attention span days because your students don’t have to wait as long between traveling. It can also be great if you want to get through traveling steps faster because you’re working on a recital dance. The downside of this option is all of your students are moving at once. So it can be more difficult to give individual attention and help. Place your movement cards in a pile, face-down, in the center of the room. Your students will stand in a large circle. Call on one student to go to the center and pick a card. Play music and have your students do that movement traveling in a circle. Pause the music as a cue for your students to stop. Repeat the process until you’ve finished with traveling movements.

You can also do the circle option without movement cards. Simply call out a movement for students do to when you’ve paused the music. 

Next, I’ll show you each traveling movement for Primary Ballet. I’ve also included traveling movement for earlier levels in case you ever need to take your students back to something simpler and work up to the more difficult traveling steps. You might notice, however, a lot of our traveling steps are the same for preschool and primary levels. This is because, in the preschool level, we are mostly concerned with exposing students to the steps and having them participate and give the steps a try. In Primary Ballet, we can expect more of our students technically. Developmentally, they have more coordination and control. Some steps may still be challenging. But for the ones that aren’t as challenging, expect a higher level of technique from your 5 to 7 year olds. You can encourage (and even expect) things like pointed feet and stretched knees in this level.

 
 

If you’d like to see more on video, check out our video glossary of traveling steps for ages 5 to 7.

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Lesson 9: Centre Allegro

Centre allegro is such an important part of class. Why? Because it builds so much strength your students will need later on in their feet and ankles. So while this part of class is short, try not to ever skip it! In this level, we do some more technical ballet jumps, turned out, like sautés in first position and échappés. We also do jumps in parallel like hops on two feet, hops on one foot, and picked up jumps. Thes jumps are mostly for developing feet, ankle, and lower leg strength. We also introduce spring points and spring heels for technique and coordination. And we continue to do fireworks jumps. These are still very fun for this age group.

 
 

If you’d like to see more on video, check out our video glossary of centre allegro steps for ages 5 to 7.

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Lesson 10: Free Dance

Free dance has so many benefits. It’s benefits are completely different from what we just talked about in centre allegro. If you see ballet as both sport and art, centre allegro prepares your students for the athletic aspect while free dance prepares them for the artistic aspect.

Free dance is important in the development of expression and creativity, after all it really lets them explore being creative.

Free dance can be great at boosting self confidence too. Even when you give some guidelines for your students during free dance, they are making decisions. They are deciding where to travel. They might be deciding what step to do. They might be deciding how to display a certain emotion or act out a certain role. As you give them these opportunities, they are deciding what step to do or how to move. Then they are following through with it. This builds autonomy and problem solving skills. It also helps your students to build confidence.

Free dance is a great way to reinforce traveling or centre allegro steps students have already done in class. You can ask your students to do a certain step at any point during a free dance. Free dance is also a great way to incorporate dance concepts into your class. Can your students perform a certain step big or small? High or low? Fast or slow? Quick and sharp or slow and fluid? 

Here’s a review of the most common dance concepts we explore in the Once Upon a Ballet lesson plans.

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Lesson 11: Skillwork

We’ve added skillwork in some of our more recent lesson plans for this age group. This is a time for working on a particular skill. Sometime this might be something like exploring rhythm and musicality. Other times it might be working on a skill like spotting, or a step that requires more coordination like skips or spring points and spring heels. It might focus on the quality of arms during port de bras or a particular pose like a tendu derrière with arms in 3rd arabesque. For younger students in this age group, the goal of skillwork is to expose them to some more technical work. For older students in this age group, the goal of skillwork is to help prepare them for more technical work they’ll be doing next in Ballet 1.

Remember: If you have a very young 5 to 7 year old class, where most students are 5, skillwork may be difficult for them simply because of attention spans. If you find you’re losing a young 5 to 7 year old class during skillwork, try replacing it with an obstacle course that works on some skills.

Here are a few examples of skillwork in a Primary Ballet class. These have been written for our OUB Fairy Tale Dance Curriculum, but can be easily adapted to other themes and stories if you’re using something else.

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Lesson 12: Révérence

In this age group, we’ve replaced “Goodbye Time” with “Révérence”. This includes a standing port de bras. You can still do an optional bubbles time. (Bubble time is allowing your students to move freely as you blow bubbles.) And we’ll finish with a curtsy or bow. You can also say goodbye with stickers or stamps and a coloring page. While this is very similar to the ending of your preschool classes, there is a stronger focus on technique. You should really pay attention to the arm positions and movement quality of the arms during the port de bras. The curtsy becomes more technical for girls. a curtsy is a tendu front, plié on the standing leg with a slight bow of the head, stretch, and close to 1st position. Arms are in demi seconde. Bows are done from 1st position instead of parallel for boys.

 
 

Lesson 13: Obstacle Courses (Optional)

You can still do obstacle courses at this level! We often think of obstacle courses for toddlers and preschoolers, but this early elementary age group really enjoys them too. Obstacle courses can be a great way to give your students a little extra practice while using their imaginations and changing things up a bit.

As mentioned earlier, obstacle courses can be a great substitute for the “skillwork” section of class. This can be particularly useful if you have a younger Primary Ballet class. You can use obstacle courses to reinforce skills and steps your students are working on or may need some extra practice on. 

Here is an obstacle course example for the 5 to 7 year old age group.

 
 

Lesson 14: Turnout

Because you’ll be formally introducing turnout in this level, I wanted to devote some time on properly teaching and checking that your students are turning out correctly. In the video below, I cover the progression of turnout from one level to the next and also how to check that your students are correctly aligned during turnout.

 
 

Lesson 15: Feet Positions

Next, let’s cover feet positions and the progression we teach in our method. While the information in the video below will not be on the exam, I do highly recommend watching it so you understand the thought behind when to teach which positions when. This video also touches on the degree of turnout to use for each age group.

 
 

Lesson 16: Arm Positions

This is another bonus type of lesson. Like the previous lesson, this information will not be included on the exam. However, I do think it is useful to know in teaching Primary Ballet.

 
 

Lesson 17: Finding Music for Primary Ballet

My favorite music to use for this age group is typically Disney karaoke music or Disney classical music. I’ve found soundtracks in general are great to use for Primary Ballet. I’ve found my own students tend to like soundtracks over general classical music. They tend to connect with it better. And overall, classical music from a Disney movie soundtrack will also be very familiar to a lot of your students ages 5 to 7.

Here are my favorite classical music albums to use in Primary Ballet. 

Disney Goes Classical

Disney Classics

Classically Disney

Disney and Pixar Piano Classics

If you use any of our curriculums for your 5 to 7 year old classes, music is recommended for each exercise and activity and linked in Spotify.

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Lesson 18: The Extras: Movement Cards, Coloring Pages, Student Certificates

At Once Upon a Ballet, we truly want your classes to be extra special for your students. I hope for this course is that it gives you the knowledge and tools to teach an incredible Primary Ballet class. A class that helps your students build a strong technical foundation and also creativity and a love for ballet.

There are a few small extras that can help with making class extra special that I want to cover in this lesson.

Movement Cards

Movement cards are great for mixing things up. They are a great visual element to use in class. They can create suspense (and therefore help hold attention spans longer) when you let your students draw a movement card to determine next step during traveling or free dancing. What next step will be chosen!?

Coloring Pages

Coloring pages are a perfect way to send a little reminder of ballet class home each week. We include coloring pages that match the themes and stories used in the Once Upon a Ballet curriculums and lesson plans. This way, your students can be reminded of class when they color their coloring pages at home. 

Student Certificates

Giving your students a certificate of achievement—whether at the end of the academic year, a term, or a theme or story, is a great way to help your students feel they’ve accomplished something. It’s a great start for working toward a goal and achieving it!

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Step 3: Feedback Survey

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Step 4: Course Review

Submit a headshot or photo by emailing it to hello@oub.dance with the subject line: “Primary Ballet Review Photo - [First and Last Name]”.

Step 5: Course Agreement

Before you complete the agreement, please review the Once Upon a Ballet Certified Terms here. By completing the course agreement, you agree to these terms.

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Congrats!

You’ve completed all 5 steps required for certification! Below, you will find links to your certificate and certified teacher and studio logos. To edit your certificate, click on “Your Certificate” below. Then select File > Make a Copy.