Dynamic Play and Creative Movement: Powering Body and Brain

Dynamic Play and Creative Movement offers effective and accessible methods to supplement elementary education for young children using dance, movement, and play.

Imagination, physical energy, and the need for self-expression are childhood qualities recognized by parents but are not sufficiently valued to be applied to formal education. Yet when valued as natural endowments, they might intelligently be used to increase a child's perceptive abilities and self-confidence, essential to learning. These three qualities combine in dynamic play, a term devised by the author to describe an approach to learning. Through physical participation, children deal with concepts, ideas, and emotions while they reach out to touch a vast world of people, animals, nature, and activities. The chapters provide for improvisations in music, visual art, drama and stories in addition to topics related to the changing seasons, sports, school subjects, travel, games, and many other elements of the natural and man-made world. Research about the correlation of movement to brain activity is included to support the thesis that creative movement is an effective adjunct to learning.

Therapists, counselors, and preschool and elementary teachers will find this easily adaptable material valuable in fostering perception, insight, and cognitive understanding in children.

Dr. Judith Peck is a sculptor, professor emerita of art, and author of several books on art technique, movement, and parenting, as well as two novels and award-winning children’s picture books.