Are you looking for fun, interactive, and educational things to keep your kids occupied at home? You’re not alone. Normally this time of year, I’d be managing my team of dancers that travel to universities, military bases, and festivals, performing for my touring company, Salsa Fiesta. With the country on lockdown due to the pandemic, our spring tour was postponed. Stuck in my home office in Staunton, I hosted a few dance classes on Facebook Live for free to make up for canceled shows. Turns out, several of our booking agents, and show promoters made these a family evening of dancing in the living room. That is when the personal messages started coming in. Do you have any classes or know videos that show kids how to dance? My answer was, no, and no. But with extra time on my hands, I decided I could just make one for them. Now going into its third week, it’s called Kids Dance Fiesta and it’s loads of fun!
What is Kids Dance Fiesta? Alongside my trusty “co-host,” Teddy the teddy bear, Salsa Fiesta is a free video series on YouTube geared towards children ages 2 - 6 that uses dance and music as a way to get them up and moving, as well as teach simple words in Spanish. Hosted by me! David, (also pronounced in Spanish, Da-veed) Older kids seem to enjoy it as well.
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The songs are repetitive with hand or feet gestures or motion that helps associate both the English and Spanish words together. Many of the dances are based on real basic steps which I think makes it extra cool. I’ve also included crafting segments in some episodes and plan to add a few other fun learning segments in the coming weeks.
When: Each Thursday I upload a new episode at 11am! They are about 7-10 minutes long. Right now, I plan on making them as long as people keep watching them!
Where: YouTube Kids! At Kids Dance Fiesta. Did I mention they are free to watch? The first few episodes are on Facebook Video but will begin only posting to YouTube Kids since YouTube does a better job at suggesting only videos made for kids with other kids-only content. Keeping this a kid-safe space is really important to me.
What Else I Should I Know? Right now, liking and following our Facebook Page, is a great way to get updates. We’ll post info about new episodes and any crafting segment coming up so grownups can gather supplies beforehand. Parents can leave comments or make suggestions from their kids that I might end up using in future episodes. I hope for this to be fun for everyone during these strange times we’re going through and hopefully can share my love for music, dance, and the Spanish language in a positive way.
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