1st April 2009 - 30th November 2009
Small Bodies Big Voices, funded by Find Your Talent, was a partnership between The Y, freelance dance artists and twelve Early Years settings across Leicester City and Leicestershire.
The sessions took place from April – July 2009.
125 children, 33 parents and 49 Early Years Practitioners took part in the project
- To provide creative movement sessions that will encourage children to fully explore their movement potential and become confident, independent learner
- To enable children to communicate their choices about creative activities and explore how these choices impact their learning.
- To work with parents, childminders and early year practitioners in developing understanding of creativity and the importance of tuning into choices made by children.
- Moving together encourages positive relationships.
- Copying, reflecting back and affirmation are powerful tools to engage children.
- Revisiting movement activities builds on the children’s learning and confidence.Training provides adults with the confidence to use their own bodies and reflect on their learning.
- Children’s confidence in their own ideas, in their bodies and in their capacity to make choices.
- Other areas of learning such as speaking and listening, mark making, creative play and social interaction.
- Parents interactions with their children and the understanding of the role they play in their child’s learning.
- Early Years practitioners understanding of the importance of providing opportunities for children to explore with their bodies.
Small children communicate and therefore make choices primarily through their bodies. Small Bodies Big Voices provided new opportunities to explore the ways in which children use their bodies to communicate. The project succeeded in affirming and celebrating children’s choices and as a consequence developed confident, independent learners and thinkers.
