ABSTRACT

An essential part of children’s development in the early years involves creative engagement through language, gestures, body movements, drawing, music, and creating shared meanings in playful contexts.

Supporting Children’s Creativity through Music, Dance, Drama and Art brings together contributions from a range of early years practitioners and professionals, sharing their ‘creative conversations’ and helping readers to implement the themes of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework in a creative way. Including a new chapter to explore the relationships between music and movement, this second edition has been fully updated and covers:

  • How to incorporate music-making and storytelling in the classroom
  • How to use stories of practice to inspire reflection and change
  • How to extend, challenge and sustain children’s interests
  • How to make use of the ‘Talking Table’ and ‘Helicopter’ approaches
  • How to become an effective play-partner
  • How to improve practice with interactive strategies and music for well-being
  • How to use observation to inspire planning and learning projects.

Appealing to all with an interest in early years practice, this new edition demonstrates how parents, carers and practitioners can put excitement and inspiration back into the learning process, guiding them to encourage and support the creative capacities of young children.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

part |10 pages

Overture

chapter 1|8 pages

‘Welcome’, ‘wonder’ and ‘magic’

Words on the fence of a Romanian kindergarten

part |30 pages

Making time and space

chapter 2|14 pages

Listening more and talking less

Nurturing children’s creativity

chapter 3|14 pages

Enriched environments

A dialogue with people, places and materials

part |57 pages

Story-making

chapter 4|17 pages

Creative conversations

The Talking Table

chapter 5|13 pages

From scribble to story

Making meaning from marks in pencil and paint

chapter 6|17 pages

Storytelling and story-acting

Putting positive interaction into action

part |42 pages

Music-making

chapter 7|16 pages

Musical movers

Creative ideas for using movement with young children

chapter 8|12 pages

The Sounds of Leaping

Exploring relationships between music and movement

chapter |3 pages

The Jam Jar Project

A conversational account

chapter 9|9 pages

Coda