DANCE PLAY PACKS
“‘The scarves are great, we use them to calm ourselves down, and then pop them like fireworks. Having 2 in the pack made sure we did everything together!”
Our dance play pack project is a direct result of R&D undertaken in 2021 into a dance play approach that harnesses the curious nature of play and combines it with open creative movement.
Developed with funding from a Sport Powys play sufficiency grant we were driven by a passion to create useful resources for parents and pre-school settings across Powys to embed movement into play and into everyday activities!
‘Children who take part in arts activities with their caregivers grow their creativity, innovation, empathy, and resilience. The arts support the development of communication, pro-social skills and motivate children to learn’ (Pascal, Bertram, & Rouse, 2019).
Using this knowledge and the knowledge that babies born in lockdown would soon be approaching preschool age, we wanted to create packs that supported dance play both in setting and at home.
We created 3 types of dance play packs;
0 - 2 years: This pack included maracas, scarves and a black and white foldout
2 - 4 years: This pack included scarves and floor spots
Early Years Settings: This pack included 24 scarves, 24 floor spots and a giant scrunchie
We co-created with our current under 5’s participants and their primary caregivers to develop props that felt fun and creative to move with, at home and in settings.
“Little one absolutely loved the bubbles...but we’ve got loads of pots of bubbles about the place so I wouldn’t really be excited by them in your packs”
Settings
We partnered with Flying Start to distribute the packs into all their early years settings across Powys. 13
packs went out along with a dance practitioner delivering an example workshop for staff and children.
13 sessions were delivered and reached 26 early years practitioners and 164 learners.
A digital platform has been developed to support the continued use of these play packs and to nurture early years practitioners using more movement based learning in their settings.
“The elastic is so much fun, it’s really versatile and encourages even our most distracted learners!”
4 more packs were distributed to; Flying Start Activity Coordinators in North and South Powys, as well as Llandrindod Library. An additional pack was given to Cylch Yn Yr Ysgol in Builth Wells where we have been delivering dance sessions and developing a Welsh language dance approach to the new curriculum and early years.
If you have a pack or would like to explore the platform for movement ideas, please email jemma@impelo.org.uk
At Home
The evidence is unequivocal that the first 1,001 days of a child’s life, from pregnancy to age two, lay the foundations for a happy and healthy life. It sets the groundwork for children developing emotional wellbeing, resilience and adaptability and the competencies they need to thrive. This period is a time of opportunity for services and interventions to support parents and primary caregivers to help lay a foundation of health and wellbeing whose benefits can last a lifetime and carry into the next generation. We wanted to support parents and children in embedding dance play into their homelife where activities and games are fun, easy, open ended and can include the whole family.
120 at-home packs were distributed at 7 events across Powys including through the Powys Health Visiting Service in Rhayader, early years dance events with Flying Start in Newtown, Welshpool and Brecon, and at various workshops and outreach events across Llandrindod Wells.
Each pack is supported by an individual digital platform that parents can access to support them in further developing more movement ideas. The platform also offers them links to support both locally and nationally, a one stop shop for supporting Powys parent/ carers and their under 5’s.
To access the platform please email jemma@impelo.org.uk
