Thread: Mother Daughter classes

Hello All,
I am starting my first mother-daughter class (if enrollment is high enough). I've never done this before, so any tips would be appreciated.

Questions:
Best format?
Games?
How much mom/daughter time to give?

Looking for anything you might be willing to share! Thanks!

Hey, I've thought about running these as well...it depends how young you are taking the daughters, but I've contemplated following kind of a Music Together format for a younger group (think mommy and me belly dance)...where the idea is just to MOVE. If it's a older group, I'd pair them off near the end of the course and have them draw movement cards or something and choreograph a mini-routine together....

I haven't run an official mother-daughter class but have had several M/D pairs in classes! If you're lucky it will be a wonderful experience: I've had one pair for 6 years (now they're also doing their own choreos together-WOW!) and I've go to see the daughter grow from a gangly barely teenager to a beautiful young lady.

The only problem I"ve had with parent/child is where to draw the teacher/discipline line. Ideally, they're both ready to behave like equal students with you the sole teacher, but this can cause snags. She's still the Mom; she's still the child. I guess the most successful strategy I can offer you is that you need to maintain just enough discipline over them so that the rest of the group is not disturbed. And let them take care of the rest.

I've done this, and I agree on the discipline suggestion. All in all it can be a lot of fun. The last mother/daughter class I taught, the daughters were as young as 4, we kept the class to a half hour and put the emphasis on fun. The moms commented that they did learn a lot and enjoyed the short workout each week. We did work on a little choreo to Kiss Kiss just so that the Mom's could feel they were building to something. The last 5 minutes of each class was a free for all dance for the girls, then good listening stickers as they left. All in all it was an enjoyable experience for everyone involved and I was careful to pick fun light music for them.

I also was a student with my own daughter in a class 1 year ago when she was 11. The youngest daughter in that class was 9. In that one is was more structured like a regular class but again, the instructor put the emphasis on Mom and Daughter dancing together. It really came across that we were partners as well as a group.

Then this year, I had the pleasure of seeing a Mom and daughter duet. They danced to a string version of Kashmir from the Bond Shine cd. They played up each others strengths, the daughter being stronger in ballet and the mom being stronger in bellydance and made a nice blend. The daughter was 16 in that case.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, hopefully something in there can give you some ideas.

Just found this thread. I know it's old but I thought if anyone has any more ideas they could please add them.

I have been asked to run a 1 hour mother / daughter belly dance introductory/fun workshop next weekend. The girls are 10 year old and they will be doing the workshop with their mums.

I have worked with both age groups before but usually as seperate groups. I run bellydance workshops for ladies groups e.g. Hens nights, health events etc. I also run bellydance for girls birthday parties. So I have some experience & all the props etc.

However I havent run a workshop with both ages at the same time. I was wondering what activities work well for this sort of group? I want to keep it interesting for both mums & daughters.

I have read the ideas here: Starting my first class for children!! and some may be adaptable.

Anything else from your experience ?

The first prop that comes to mind is the veil. Girls of all ages love to work with this. I have had great success teaching veil work to a class with large age differences.

I'd stay away from choreography unless your girls are a bit older. Choreo can be frustrating for a lot of newbies and if you have children who have a hard time focusing it could mean that the mom will not be able to focus on her belly dance experience.

Try doing some partner work like chest shimmies where mom and daughter stand face to face and throw an invisible baseball from one shoulder to the other going from mom to daughter. You can create a large circle of everyone and have them do big hip circles passing the hip circle on to the next girl/woman. You can also do a line of undulations where daughter stands in front of mom and they move as one in the undulation. You can also teach a shimmy with a hip bump. Have mom start doing the shimmy then hip bump the shimmy over to the daughter.

Mix up how you explain things. Don't assume that just because you break down a full body undulation that the little girls will understand. Keep in mind the younger your girls are the faster they pick up on things so tell them you are going to move like a dolphin jumping in and out of the water, let them go with it, then break down the movement for mom. Get creative

At the end of class you can leave some time to let moms and daughters show off their favorite moves or do a quick little combo together.

Have lots of fun, let us know how it goes!

Hi Zabelly, thanks for taking the time to reply and all your great ideas :-)
It's tomorrow, so Im just putting together the program and music now.

I love your ideas about using the partner/circle work and am going to use those activities. Im pretty happy with what Im putting together now, so thank you

I had the mums & daughter workshop today & it went great! There were 30 people there & it was a lot of fun.

I did the usual into, performance and mini lesson in the first part. During the second part I used the ideas from here; working in pairs to teach shoulder shimmy & snake arms on opposite sides. That worked well.

Other hits were passing the hip circle and hip bump around the circle (thanks Zabelly!) and dancing across the circle in their pairs.

All the mums & daughters joined in & there were lots of smiles, so :-) Thanks for the ideas, it really helped make a good time

Im so glad to hear it went well. Congradulations on a sucessful first mither daughter belly dance class!