The thesis, entitled The Use of Unstructured Material and Dance Stories in Encouraging Dance Creativity in Kindergarten, is divided into two parts: the theoretical and the empirical. I first defined dance and creative movement as they relate to the preschool stage and focused on what dance elements are and why dance incentives in the preschool stage are so important. I defined the concept of dance and movement stories, their connection to embodied cognition, and the importance of the educator's role in their planning. As I was interested in seeing how children would respond emotionally to the activities laid out in the thesis, I researched basic emotions and the way they are processed. I was also curious as to the impact of movement on the more vulnerable children: children who speak Slovene as a second language and a child with special needs. The empirical part of the thesis lays out six dance and movement activities that I conducted within a heterogeneous kindergarten group of children aged four to six. The main aim of the thesis was to discover how the children would respond to stimulus in the form of dance and how they would explore the elements of dance during the course of the six activities. I also wanted to observe how the more vulnerable children would be included in the activities and whether social cohesion at the group level would change before and after the activities were carried out. As the group of children also included two children who speak Slovene as a second language and a child with special needs, I wondered how they would react to the proposed activities. The children thoroughly enjoyed the dance and movement activities and, over the course of six weeks, became very relaxed in their creative work. Their movements were spontaneous, a concept foreign to them at first as they were not familiar with this approach to activities in kindergarten. Through dance and movement stories, they consolidated knowledge from various curricular areas, focusing on nature and society. The children listened to the contents of the stories and then illustrated and internalised them through creative movement. This made it easier for them to embody content that was less familiar to them. Although the child with special needs was included in all activities, the processing of data was not possible due to the unpredictability of their emotional state. The children who speak Slovene as a second language were very active and motivated, mostly imitating peers in their movements and, in doing so, experiencing positive emotions.
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