Rachael Carnes
Concept-based Creative Dance for Babies & Toddlers
Posted by Mar 20, 2013 1 comment
Rachael Carnes
Babies and toddlers love to move! Any parent or caregiver can tell you that.
For further demonstration, just look at the happy expression on their little faces as they flap their arms like a bird or their sheer focus and determination as they scoot across the floor on their tummies: kids just seem to have fun exploring their world through their own bodies.
And as they play, stretch, curl, reach, grasp, teeter, cruise, crawl and run, they're also learning.
What Do We Mean by the Kinesthetic Sense?
When asked to list the human senses, most of us would rattle off sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. From the shape and color of an apple in a picture book to the smell of grandma's pumpkin pie or grandpa's curried tofu, babies and toddlers get lots of sensory experiences that they will begin to recognize, sort, differentiate, and assimilate.
As babies and toddlers grow, their sense of their own movement, called kinesthesia, will expand. Some movement educators, physical therapists, and developmental psychologists refer to the kinesthetic sense as the "sixth sense": It represents not only the sensation of your child's own body, either still or moving, but also his or her growing ability to abstract cause and effect among objects.
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