"Movement is as necessary to mental and physical development as food."
-- Grace Nash
"Dance is an island in a sea of motion."
-- Rudolf Laban
Creative movement and dance is an enjoyable way for young children to develop their physical skills, channel their energy, stimulate their imagination and promote their creativity. Creative dance involves using body actions to communicate an image (the wind), an idea (a journey) or a feeling (strength). Many early childhood educators recognize young children's primary need to express themselves through movement. Some teachers include movement exploration to enhance other curriculum areas such as language and literature, science, art and outdoor play. Moreover, the philosophy of creative movement and dance is similar to the aims of early childhood education programs where opportunities for noncompetitive, success-oriented and creative experiences for young children are valued.
Benefits
Creative dance in early childhood education corresponds to the fundamental phase of movement development that occurs between the ages of two to seven. During this time, locomotion (e.g., creeping, walking, running, jumping, leaping and galloping), non locomotion (e.g., stretching, bending, twisting, turning, shaking and swinging), and stability and balance skills are able to flourish when children are provided with sufficient practice opportunities (Gallahue, 1982). The above list provides a ready-made movement vocabulary for teachers to enhance familiar songs, stories and rhymes. As young children's language vocabulary increases, so can their dance vocabulary and their ability to express themselves through movement.
Another benefit involves the aesthetic nature of creative movement and dance. "Most definitions of aesthetics involve the capacity to perceive, respond and be sensitive to the natural environment and to human creations" (Feeney & Moravcik 1987, p. 7). All the senses are engaged when children explore and discover different aspects of movement. For example, the kinesthetic sense increases as children literally feel the shapes and actions that their bodies are making. Visually, children respond to the images they see in front of them as well as the images they imagine or create. The auditory sense is stimulated as children respond to sounds they make or hear in the environment, as well as to music. Examples of tactile experiences include touching one another to make a bridge, running with bare feet, doing on-the-floor movements, swirling a cloth, or stretching a big elastic band (Haselbach, 1971). Such fundamental sensory experiences can lead children to appreciate the beauty and form in nature, art and literature as well as the beauty in everyday living.
A social benefit of creative dance is that it encourages an interactive environment where children share space as they explore movement together but in their own way. Gradually, opportunities for children to observe different responses to movement ideas are given and the possibility of creating movements together becomes more appealing. For example, after a group experienced a free flow snow dance with white streamers moving up, down and around in the air, some of the children improvised a solid ice castle of connected body shapes. Also, after stomping around in a friendly dinosaur dance, some of the children decided to line up and take big steps together while the last child was dragged along lying flat, as the tail!
Creative movement and dance can benefit children with special needs because they can participate at their own level of ability. For example, children who are physically challenged can explore body parts or keep a beat by blinking their eyes. Props such as feathers, instruments or scarves do not have to be hand-held but can be placed or attached in an appropriate area of the child's body or equipment. All children with special needs can feel a sense of belonging to a group and a sense of joy at being able to learn on a fundamental movement level. "The necessary modifications are often uncomplicated; it is simply a matter of focusing on what the children can do, as opposed to what they cannot" (Pica, 1995; p. 77). Creative movement and dance activities can be used to enhance almost all other areas of learning and growth including: Health and Fitness -- Since researchers are becoming increasingly concerned about the low level of fitness in all children and have observed that young children are being socialized to prefer less activity (Werner et al), it is imperative that early childhood programs offer a regular movement program. I have found that young children are fascinated with their bodies. They enjoy activities that explore the use of muscles (including the heart) and the different ways we can make our bodies strong and healthy (e.g., stretching, jogging, climbing, skating, swimming and dancing).
Providing lots of opportunity for locomotion activity on a regular basis contributes to children's fitness level.
Non locomotion/Locomotor Actions
All sorts of sequences of non locomotion actions can be used for warm-up exercises and relaxation. The image of a balloon growing and collapsing is an image with which children can easily relate. Once the children's balloon body stays all blown-up, it can float and twist on an adventure until it "pops" and has to begin all over again. I use an inexpensive slide whistle to guide this exploration and dance.
Locomotion or travelling through space is often what children consider to be dancing. Children respond to locomotion because it is an exhilarating and freeing activity and, as a result, "horse dances" and "car dances" are very popular with young boys and girls. A tambourine or drum is an excellent instrument to guide and phrase children's favorite actions -- running, galloping and jumping. Children practice controlling their bodies by contrasting locomotion actions and stillness or holding their body shape. A phrase of movement is like a sentence with punctuation at the end. Various suggestions such as "freeze," "hold it," "whoa," "put your brakes on," and "hold your muscles," helps children stop their locomotion activity and provides a safety precaution. Action songs (from Fred Penner, Sandra Beech, Charlotte Diamond, Alley-oop and Bob Schneider), provide a going and stopping structure that gives children the freedom to move safely in the space.
The technique of naming a dance is very similar to a child's remembering the names of songs or stories. For example, imitating body parts movements is a satisfactory experience for young two-year-olds and there are a variety of songs to structure the movement. By adding an image and perhaps some evocative music, older threes and four-year-olds delight in using their body parts as part of a happy, bouncing "puppet dance" or a jerky "robot dance." Likewise, flying through the space in a shape and size selected by the children may become a "bird dance" or a "kite dance" with similar sequences of rising, floating, twisting and falling; starting and ending in a shape gives the dance a form and imparts a finished feeling to a movement sequence. While some movement exploration will have taken place to prepare the children or set a mood, each child will have an opportunity to create his or her very own interpretation of the image and it becomes their special dance.
There are times when children let us know that they would like to express themselves non-verbally. For example, one day a child came in and declared that he was very, very grumpy and he did not like people. A small group gathered to share in his feeling and eventually all were doing a "grumpy dance" to rather loud drum beats and grunts. It was revealed that the reason for this unpleasant feeling was that all his money had been stolen. So a search for the money ensued and finally it was found. Next, all the "grumpy feelings" were gathered together and shipped off to the mountains. Not long after, another small group gathered and they wanted to do what the first group did. While the story action began in the same way, the resolution came much easier with the children deciding that making and giving presents was in order. In the weeks to come, we repeated versions of this story with different solutions.
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