The Benefits of (Doodle) Dance
Physical: concerning the physical growth and the development of a child’s gross and fine motor movement in the body.
Benefits:
- Moving safely, imaginatively and with confidence
- Moving with bodily control, co-ordination, agility, flexibility and
- balance
- The development of spatial awareness
- Dancing with props – developing manipulative skills
- Experiencing a range of gross and fine motor movements
- Keeping healthy – dance as part of a healthy lifestyle.
- Muscle control and tone and core strength and stability
- Expanding their body awareness and correct posture
- Relieve stress and encourage relaxation – reducing anxiety
- Encourages grace, line and stamina
Language and speech: using visual and sound stimuli, especially in the acquisition of language, also in the exchange of thoughts and feelings.
Benefits:
- The use of sounds, music, words and rhymes for accompaniment to dance
- The use of language to imagine and recreate roles and ideas in dance
- Interaction – developing conversational skills
- Observation – reliving / discussing the events of a class
- Developing a vocabulary of movement
- Manners – saying please and thank you to the teacher and other dancers
Cognitive / Intellectual: how a child thinks and reacts
Benefits:
- Developing and nurturing individual creativity
- Building Self confidence and encouraging independence
- Stimulating mental processes
- Expanding their rhythmic awareness
- Communicating ideas and feelings non-verbally through movement
- Self Expression and focus
- Using the imagination
- Helps promote a lifestyle attitude about healthy and active living
- Helps with memory
- Helps learn to recognise and trust impulses and act on or contain them as they choose
Social and Emotional: concerning a child's ability to feel and express an increasing range of emotions and ability to relate to others appropriately and become independent.
Benefits:
- Expressing emotion
- Building social skills
- Dancing individually or part of a group
- Developing trust and co-operation
- Exploring feelings of self and others – including cultural and physical
- Accepting a certain discipline and courtesy within the group
- Creates powerful social and emotional bonds
- Reduces isolation