Party ideas, Ballet games and Dancing fun
A few weeks ago, I had great fun running a summer ballet workshop for little dancers aged between 4 and 7. We had a very busy morning full of games, crafts and of course plenty of dancing. It suddenly hit me that many of the activities we did would also work quite well for ballet-themed birthday parties. I’m not sure if anyone is planning a ballet party for little dancers but just in case you are, here are some tried and tested ideas. I started writing this blog and it was getting incredibly long so I have pasted 5 ideas down here and I will release the next 5 next week:
1. Pin the tutu on the ballerina- A variation of the popular party game ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ this activity worked a treat and was much loved by all! I am lucky enough to know a graphic designer, so they drew a digital sketch of a ballerina for me which I then got printed onto large A2 paper (cost around £4) and used glue to attach it to some cardboard. If unlike me you are good at drawing, you could easily hand draw the ballerina straight onto the cardboard to save on printing costs. Be sure that the tutu you use to stick onto the ballerina is also made of cardboard so that it doesn’t get crumpled by tiny hands!
2. Ballerina craft kits-My amazing gran loves doing homemade craft kits and she made these for me (again my gran is much more artsy than me so it was best to let her take the lead on this one!). Each kit consisted of two activities. The first activity was make your own ballerina card. Each child had a blank card, envelope, stickers and attachable paper decorations. This kept the dancers busy for ages, especially when it came to them deciding what they were going to write in the card and how they would decorate the envelope! The second activity was a create your own bookmark. Each child had 2 blank bookmarks and plenty of stickers. Some actually stuck the bookmarks together to make a super bookmark which I thought was quite imaginative!
3. Ball game- This game involved me taking lots of different cardboard boxes and sticking them together to create targets. I wrapped the boxes in pink wrapping paper to decorate them. The best boxes I used were actually ones which originally had new glass tumblers in them because they had 6 round separators that the children could try and shoot balls into.
4. Prop stop-For this one you will need a hat and lots of small pieces of paper to write the name of different props on. Simply pick a prop out of the hat. Whichever prop comes out, the children use to dance with. I choreographed different short dances for each prop but you could also let the children freestyle.
5. Emoji game- Print off 5 different emoji faces: sad, happy, angry, party and in love. Match these faces to pieces of music representing the feeling e.g. happy music. Each time you hold up an emoji you can ask the children to dance how that particular emoji is feeling e.g. happy emoji=happy music.
I hope this is helpful for you and you have any questions please feel free to contact me on emily@emilydance.com.
