Primrose Schools Family Dance-Off

Primrose Schools has launched a national campaign to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyle choices by encouraging families across the country to boogie on down! From February 1st through March 26th, capture a 30 second family dance video and enter it in the Family Dance-off for a chance to win a grand prize of $5000 and a $30,000 donation to your local Children's Miracle Network Hospital. There are also prizes for second and third place, plus all 14 finalists will receive a Flip camcorder.

With their second annual Family Dance-off, Primrose Schools, the leader in educational child care, is helping to fight the childhood obesity epidemic. They are partnering with Children's Miracle Network Hospitals® to promote physical activity, healthy lifestyle choices and quality family time, things all Moms can get behind!

Here's how you and your family can enter the Primrose Family Dance-off competition:

1. Record a 30-second video of your family's best dance moves. Don't be afraid to let loose and be silly!

2. Visit The Family Dance-off site and upload your best take by March 19.

3. Share your video with your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

4. View and vote daily (you can place five votes per day) for your favorite family dance video!

Not only is dancing a fun, easy way to incorporate more activity into your routine, but when you do it as a family, you can enjoy some quality time together.

The Family Dance-off supports Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, a non-profit organization that raises funds for more than 170 children's hospitals, which collectively treat 17 million children annually for every illness and injury imaginable.

I was selected to host an in-home Primrose Family Dance-off Party. So, this past weekend, when we got together with 4 other families for a pre-Valentine's Day party, we made it into a Primrose Family Dance-off party. Since the party was at my friends house, I made sure that she was good with this. She said it sounded like a great idea. She mentioned that they had recently picked up the Just Dance and Just Dance Kids for the Wii, and had hoped to play them at the party. It sounded like a great fit to me. I grabbed the CD that had come with the party kit and we "warmed up" singing and dancing to the hits (I had to smile as I listened to what were obvious clean-ups of the songs that I knew to make them family friendly). After some visiting, snacking on some wonderful fresh fruit and dip and some veggie pizza, and a little arts and crafts (included cookie decorating - not healthy, but its good to learn to enjoy sweets and treats in moderation), we put in the games and started to play. Initially, the parents were playing the kids version, trying to learn the game so we could teach the kids. Watching the parents figure out the game was cause enough for a few giggles. The kids were glad to get their chance to dance once we knew enough to show them how to follow along with the on-screen dancers. It was fun watching the kids who ranged in age from 3 to 9 try to follow along with the on-screen dance. We captured the fun on video and showed them how they looked dancing. I guess my perspective of 30s was off, because none of them are long enough clips to submit and we will have to have more fun dancing on another occasion to get a 30 second family video to submit to the Primrose Schools Family Dance-off.

I had planned to insert one of my videos here, but when I played them back, I realized how many side conversations I picked up and they were noisy!! Plus, since I was standing off to the side, the quality wasn't so great. Yet another reason that I need to capture new video so that I can enter!

No compensation was received for this post. As a Primrose Schools Family Dance-off home party host, I received a party kit that included a CD, a couple of t-shirts for the kids, a gift card for party supplies, and a FLIP Camcorder to record the fun. In addition, I was entered for a chance to win a gift card in exchange for this post.