Movement and Dance in Early Childhood
- Mollie Davies - Educational Consultant, Surrey
This is a unique and innovative book on movement and dance development from birth to eight years. The author shares her depth of knowledge and practical experience in helping children to become skilled, creative and imaginative in a wide range of movement-oriented activities. The book seeks to help early childhood educators and parents in very practical ways and provides guidance based on a sound theoretical understanding.
Originally published as Helping Children Learn Through a Movement Perspective, this book has been fully revised and update and now includes:
- An extended investigation of how young children learn in and through movement
- Detailed links between movement and early childhood theories of education and care
- An expanded chapter on dance, which suggests strategies for working with young children
- A new chapter showing how expressive aspects of children's movement can be appropriately located. It includes examples for dance at Key Stage 1 and the early phases of Key Stage 2.
I found this text very clear to follow with excellent ideas to implement in the classroom. Movement is related to everyday situations which makes a clear link for the students.
An invaluable resource for our early year’s trainees to extend their understanding of movement and dance. The text allows for students to 'dip in and out' and it is nice to see photographs representing free movement. The chapter ‘What is Movement' discusses Laban's analysis of movement with a clear emphasis on the key principles and how this theory can be translated to movement in the practical environment. The last chapter with practical ideas for lesson planning is always a popular one with trainees!