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Shake It, Baby!
Toddlers Can Express Themselves through Dance By Rae Pica, Children's Movement Specialist
There may come a time, of course, when you consider dance "classes," which offer children important opportunities for socialization and for participation in group activities without having to wait for a party. Should you decide to enroll your child in one, be sure it emphasizes creative movement or dance.
Your toddler should first experience activities focusing on body and spatial awareness. (How is he to properly use his body parts if he doesn't know where they are and what they can do? How is she to share space with others without an understanding of the area surrounding her own body?) The program should also focus on the fundamental movement skills. The basic motor skills nonlocomotor (stationary, like bending and stretching) and locomotor (traveling, like walking or hopping) have been called the "ABCs of movement." And, just as we wouldn't expect children to begin reading without the ability to identify the letters of the alphabet, we can't expect children to successfully take part in structured physical activities without first mastering the ABCs of movement. That means bending and stretching before pli豠and relev豬 and tiptoeing and jumping before triplets and jet豮
Self-expression and joy of movement should reign! And, as much as you'd love to show your little one off to the world, recitals are simply not a good idea at this stage of their development. It's like asking a child who's barely learned to speak to clearly recite the Declaration of Independence for an audience. Instead, let him show you what he can do in the privacy and security of your living room.
Here are some ideas for musical games you can play with your child.
This activity provides experience with stopping and starting on signal, balance, body and spatial awareness, discrimination between sound and silence and more. By making a game out of it, movement "improvisation," which promotes creativity and self-expression, isn't nearly as intimidating as the instruction to "move in the way the music makes you feel." And when you use varying styles and tempos of music, your toddler practices a variety of movements and gets an early lesson in music appreciation.