Important Reasons For Including
Folk Dancing In Your Curriculum
Folk dances help young students understand and appreciate the beauty and diversity of children from various world cultures. The joy of dancing honors the creativity of human beings and uniqueness of each culture. Participants will have a wonderful time sharing dances together and strengthening their commitments to share this art form with their students. Experiences with folk dancing has been shown to improve rhythm in children and provide them with unique opportunities to recall sequences, phrases and patterns in the steps, much as they would with language arts and math experiences.
Workshop Participants will:
- Take their students on a dancing tour of the world to help children understand and appreciate the beauty and diversity of children from various world cultures.
- Learn the steps to several developmentally appropriate folk dances for young children from countries around the world to be incorporated into the curriculum as the teacher presents lessons on cultural diversity or during enjoyable experiences with movement.
- Fashion authentic rhythm instruments from various countries, using recycled materials.
- Enhance the dance experience and emphasize the unique components of the cultures through the utilization of costumes, rhythm instruments, literature, and crafts from the various countries.
- Develop specific skills for teaching folk dancing as well as ideas for incorporating folk dancing into holiday and school celebrations.
We've Got The Whole World In Our Feet! ~ Children's Folk Dances From Around the World
“Thank you Lorraine. Your ideas, creativity and energy are a true inspiration!”
Valerie Lustgarten ~Lower School Director
Jacobson Sinai Academy
Israeli Dance - Educational Resources
Contact Lorraine Arcus for a complete catalog of materials:
- CDs with music for over 400 dances appropriate for children, teens, and simchas with written instructions
- Accompanying instructional DVDs
- “Zman Lirkod-A Manual For Teaching Israeli Dance”
Would you like to include a curriculum of Israeli Dance in your school or classroom?
A consultation/workshop might include:
- Meet with director and/or teacher to establish goals.
- Learn a useful repertoire of age-appropriate dances.
- Create a format for a school-wide program that could culminate in a celebration or festival.
- Train oldest students to teach younger students.
- Conduct an Israeli dance activity for students and parents together.
- Fashion simple costumes and props.
- Relate Israeli dance to on-going Israel, history, cultural, or holiday curriculum.
Israeli Dance
Let's Dance!
Our Location
Lorraine Posner Arcus
Early Childhood Consulting
World's Children
"Now, more than ever, our children need joyful experiences that help them discover and appreciate treasures of their own cultures and cultures from around the world. No one provides such enriching activities as beautifully as Lorraine Arcus as she invites friends of all ages into her circle of dance. The arts are the language of the human spirit and through dances and music from places near and far, familiar and new, we learn, with Lorraine, the delight of diversity within the universality of our oldest ways of celebrating- through music and dance."
~ Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld ~