Dancing has always had a positive impact on youth development. Whether it’s doing the Macarena, partnering in a complicated square dance, or moving across the room with a waltz, dancing has been a huge part of our history.  It is a valuable tool to use when teaching skills such as fine motor development, pattern recognition, discipline, teamwork, and more. We can use dancing to teach our Cloverbuds developmental skills while also having a good time.

Great dances for Cloverbuds will:

• Have a simple structure that is easy to follow and consists of 3-5 steps
• Have a repetitive pattern of steps
• Utilize a short song of no more than 3 minutes
• Have a medium tempo (too fast and they can’t keep up with the steps, too slow and they will lose interest)

Circle dances are a great tool to use with Cloverbuds.  Circle dances can be done in any group size and everyone does the moves together. This allows the youth to watch each other as they are dancing, so they can easily follow along.  In order to be sure your dance works, test it with a small group before trying it with a large group of Cloverbuds.

After you’ve taught the dance steps to the youth, call-out the instructions as they are dancing to help them.

Here are some songs and dances you can use but always feel free to create or find your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jCn7Xgru1A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZxoE2Rj49I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0hzZUbIXio