2nd Edition
Supporting Children’s Creativity through Music, Dance, Drama and Art Creative Conversations in the Early Years
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.
Acknowlegements
List of Contributors
Introduction
Fleur Griffiths
Overture
1. Welcome, Wonder and Magic: words on the fence of a Romanian Kindergarten
Annabella Cant
Making Time and Space
Dancing on the Decking: an observation
Rose Davies
2. Listening More and Talking Less: nurturing children’s creativity
Kay Rooks
3. Enriched Environments: a dialogue with People, Places and Materials
Fleur Griffiths in Conversation with Tracy Kirkbride
Story-making
4. Creative Conversations: the Talking Table
Fleur Griffiths
An A-Z of children who visit the Talking Table
Fleur Griffiths
5. From Scribble to Story: making meaning from marks in drawing and painting
Fleur Griffiths in conversation with Marysia Holubecki
6. Story-telling and Story-acting: putting the action into interaction
Evi Typadi and Karen Hayon
Music- making
Music round a Cloth
Stephanie Brandon
7. Musical Movers: Creative ideas for using Movement with young children
Angela Foley
8. The Sounds of Leaping: exploring relationships between music and movement
Catherine Reding
The Jam Jar Project: a conversational account
Tracy Kirkbride
Coda
9. Conversations for Change
Fleur Griffiths in collaboration with Pat Triggs
Recommended Reading and Resources
Biography
Fleur Griffiths is a retired nursery teacher/educational psychologist/Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at Sunderland University, UK. In retirement she has worked on a contract basis as an educational consultant in Foundation Stage settings in local authorities.
