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PROGRAM PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT * 2 HOURS * LEVEL 2

123 Dance with Me​

Page 3

Let’s Dance!​

​Music and dance are often overlooked in favor of stringent academia even in early childhood programs. 
The truth is that music and dance actually support these other subjects! 
According to VH1’s Save the Music Campaign, music and the arts have many benefits including:
  • Improving early cognitive development which supports math and literacy skill acquisition
  • Supports critical thinking skills
  • Builds self-esteem and enhances the ability to work cooperatively in teams
  • Supports healthy lifestyle choices
While these are just some of the benefits of music education and exposure to the musical arts that children can experience, there are many others. This training will focus on the physical and intellectual benefits that music brings to children and their entire lives.
Young children are movers and shakers. Early childhood professionals will be the first to tell you that sitting still isn't an innate skill that young children have. In many ways children are familiar with music and react to it on an instinctual level. The rhythm of a song often causes older infants to bob their head or move along to the music. Likewise, a young child will recognize the melody of a familiar song and dance to it in their own expressive format. These are wonderful experiences for children that not only enrich their lives and bring out their creativity, but also can build self-esteem and collaboration skills.
Mathematical concepts such as patterns, fractions, numbers, and counting are inherent musical components. When children are given musical expression opportunities such as dance or movement, they are subconsciously working with these mathematical features. The rhythm of a song is like a pattern, consistent and flowing. Children hear the pattern and feel the rhythm and react to it in the best way they see fit. Songs are divided into measures, sections, and parts where fractioning is used. Though children may not know that the song is in a specific time signature they do know that there is a beginning, middle, and end. These mathematical concepts are also apparent in the counting of the beat or rhythm of the song. Even without the awareness of counting the beats when a child reacts to the rhythm it is an exercise in counting. It is consistent, expected, and patterned.