Teaching creative dance in early childhood education

This Alternative Culminating Experience for a Master of Arts in Education: Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on Arts in Education follows Pathway III: Teacher Researcher. The project was designed as a way for the author to better her teaching through experience in a classroom. The avenue in which she gained this experience was through offering dance and creative movement lessons to pre-school aged children. Children in schools today are not getting the stimulation they need to learn. It is important for students to gain the desire to learn in order for learning to occur. The arts provide the multi-sensory stimulation that creates experiences children remember. They can easily be integrated into academic lessons to reinforce learning. Not only are the arts, and specifically dance and creative movement, a catalyst to retain information, but also they can provide life long skills inside and outside of the classroom. Through the arts important skills such as teamwork, problem solving and active and independent learning are developed.