Kinetic Classrooms: Frame Dance Reimagines Early Childhood Education

In many classrooms today, movement is treated as a side dish—served in quick bursts between long stretches of sitting. Children are offered structured, screen-led brain breaks to get their wiggles out before returning to a static learning model. But what if movement wasn’t just a release valve? What if it could be woven into the rhythm of the school day in ways that support everyone in the classroom?

That question is at the heart of Kinetic Classrooms, a new initiative from Frame Dance Productions that brings key principles of dance pedagogy into early childhood education. Through movement, breath and creativity, students engage not only their bodies but their imaginations and emotions, making learning more dynamic and developmentally aligned.

Developed by Frame Dance Founder and Artistic Director Lydia Hance and longtime collaborator Ashley Horn, Kinetic Classrooms is both a curriculum and a philosophy. It equips teachers with movement-based tools to support social-emotional development, ease classroom transitions, and create more joyful, connected learning environments.

“I knew that what was happening at Frame Dance in our classes and young dancer program was very special,” says Hance. As she considered how to expand the organization’s reach in schools, she wondered: “How can we continue to make an impact without always requiring our teachers to be there in person?”

Rather than following a more traditional path of opening additional studios or replicating Frame Dance classes in new locations—as some had requested—Hance made the decision to go deeper, not wider. “We were getting questions like, ‘Are you going to open a Sugar Land location?’ and I just knew that wasn’t the vision,” she explains. “If I imagine my life in 10 years, it’s not running multiple Frame Dance sites.”

Instead, the team asked: What if, rather than sending dance teachers out, we empowered classroom teachers to bring movement in? What if the core tools of a dance class educator could belong to every teacher?

After an organizational visioning session challenged the Frame team to imagine a more hopeful future for education, a phrase stuck: “Classrooms should be kinetic.” That idea catalyzed the program’s launch.

The curriculum itself is structured into six progressive units, each building upon the last. Lessons include daily movement activities, breathing practices, and imagination-based games. Designed with flexibility in mind, the material allows teachers to revisit and adapt what works best for their students. And once the pilot concludes, schools will have the opportunity to license the program for yearlong use.

While the material is creative and playful, the motivation behind it is deeply purposeful. Kinetic Classrooms responds directly to the rising pressures teachers face, from rigid testing benchmarks to managing larger, overstimulated classrooms.

“Why are these kids not learning? Why are they not regulated? Let’s make them sit more… It doesn’t work. We’re essentially pressure cooking these children, and then wondering why they can’t learn in that environment. It’s not how active learning happens,” says Horn, Frame’s Director of Curriculum and Pedagogy.

Teachers are stretched thin. Class sizes are growing. Testing expectations are relentless. And yet the foundational tools that support child development—movement, creativity, and play—are often the first to go.

“We’re pro-student, pro-child, pro-teacher,” Horn confirms.

The Frame Dance team realized that strategies they used routinely in the dance studio, such as structured routines, self-regulation through movement, and imaginative problem-solving, were highly effective in school settings. When visiting classroom environments, teachers frequently asked about classroom management. They were eager to know how movement could help reduce disruption and foster student focus. That repeated line of questioning helped clarify a central need.

“If we have these tools that are not only effective, but joyful, we should share them with teachers,” Horn explains.

The motivation, Hance and Horn agree, is personal. Both are working mothers raising young children of their own. “Having my own child speaking to me daily about their experiences is such a valuable kind of metric about what’s going on in education,” says Horn. “I see the positive impact in my children and our long-term students. I know they are learning through the culture at Frame Dance,” Hance adds. 

By helping students become self-aware problem solvers and honoring how children actually grow and learn, Kinetic Classrooms restores a sense of joy and possibility to teaching. The Frame Dance team is currently piloting the curriculum at three early childhood programs in the Houston area: an underserved public charter, a Reggio Emilia-inspired school, and a private, church-affiliated preschool. If successful, the next phase involves expanding access to more classrooms and developing an online training platform to support implementation at scale.

Hance also hopes the program might one day influence teacher preparation more broadly. “That’s the ultimate goal—for this to be just part of teacher training at large,” she says.

For now, the team welcomes curiosity, conversation and support. Dancers and teaching artists are uniquely positioned to advocate for movement in education, not as an extracurricular, but as a necessary part of a child’s day.

“Dancers can speak on behalf of the power of dance,” Hance says. “It’s not something that’s just reserved for dance class.”

To learn more about Kinetic Classrooms, visit framedance.org/kinetic-classrooms.