Children all have innate abilities to dance, there are many examples of infants dancing you just have to search YouTube. A fun example I found is https://bit.ly/2kh0vdr . This video in particular not only shows the child moving to the music when he hears the change in volume and tempo but also the way in which he reacts when the music volume is lowered and when the song ends. He is beginning to understand the way in which his body can move as well as understand that he is moving for an outcome, in his instance happiness. Dance embodies one of our most primal relationships to the universe, children find it innate and move naturally because it is the beginning before words can be formed and is evoked when thoughts or emotions are too powerful for words to contain, as seen by the boy. Dance is a natural method for learning and a basic form of cultural expression. It is seen that all cultures shape movement with rhythm into a form of dance, it is fundamental that education provides our children with the developing benefits and learning opportunities that are unique to dance to form an artistic understanding of Dance (INDEO, 2019).

Throughout this essay I will further explore the connections between dance and the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of children as well as how it is placed within the framework for Early Childhood Education and the role that educators play in facilitating the dance opportunities for children.

Dancing supports many areas in a child’s development including academic, social wellbeing and emotional wellbeing. Dance is not only essential for children’s learning but can also be a key tool in helping children who are Gifted and Talented overcome and move past barriers they may face.

Dancing involves body awareness, in order for a child to have good body awareness the brain must receive messages from the senses in order to create a map of the body and understand its relationship to space. This awareness is gained through activities that stimulate the inner ear; balance activities are key to this. Body awareness affects motor development which leads to poor thinking and moving. Children whom which have to concentrate on moving fingers to write their spelling and access to other key learning areas are delayed. Whether or not they understand concepts they will struggle academically in relaying in writing what they know. Body awareness activities support all learning from early childhood and beyond, for a child to learn how to cross their midline is needed in order to learn how to write in Western cultures from their left to right across a page (Roy, Baker & Hamilton, 2019).

Lobo and Winsler (2006) explains that the aptitude for children to achieve social goals, engage effectively in complex social interactions, make and maintain friendships, gain entry to social groups and achieve peer acceptance, is an extremely important domain of child development. Peer groups are one of the most important social settings that children are involved in, however, children who don’t have or have very poor social skills are at risk of experiencing a variety of problems throughout childhood and beyond, including rejection, behaviour problems, school failure, and low self-esteem. The preschool, early