Through dancing, children become aware of their bodies, time and space. Dancing is important for their psychomotor, cognitive and social-emotional development. Spatial perception is one of the psychomotor abilities.
In the theoretical part, we define dancing and creative movement. We present dancing from the point of view of the Kindergarten Curriculum and list some goals that can be achieved with dancing. Furthermore, we introduce the term dance education, its forms and methods, and present the role of adults in performing dance activities. We describe the development of movement and dance in toddlers and emphasize the importance of dance and creative movement for their development. Also, dance elements and spatial perception are discussed. In the end, we write down the various ways children can be encouraged to dance and how important these encouragements are.
The empirical part includes eight dance-movement activities. We performed our project in the kindergarten group with children aged 1–2. Using different external ways of encouragement, we enabled the children to independently explore spatial perception as a dance element. We observed the children’s reactions and provided guidance. The aim of the project was to study how to develop spatial perception as a dance element in children aged 1–2, as well as analyse how the children react to dance activities that encourage the development of spatial perception as a dance element and how to select the appropriate encouragement for dancing. For each activity, we provided goals, described the course of the activities and included an evaluation and photographs for extra clarification. All children participated, and their reactions were positive, even more, they found the activities which enabled them to further develop their spatial perception appealing.
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