The Teaching Experience of using Props in Creative Movements to Develop Children’s Imagination

Abstract

: This article explores how children’s imaginative abilities in creative movements can be developed by using props. Props can be important tools to enable children to explore various ways in portraying their creative ideas. Due to the children having individual ideas in creating movements, focus on kinaesthetic stimulation to achieve series of movements is an important factor to develop the children’s imagination. The components of creative movements such as body, space, time, and energy, are applied as the basis in the formation and development of creative movements. In the beginning stages, diagnosis was carried out to determine what was lacking in the imaginative aspects of the children. After that, the researcher conducted creative movement activities for 18 weeks. As a result from the 18-week activities, a performance portfolio was developed. Analysis by means of observation and checklist were done to evaluate and interpret the performance portfolio. This article also discusses the implementation, researcher’s experiences, and challenges encountered in conducting these activities. This helps to discover more useful alternatives in varying the teaching methods based on imaginative exploration, for the children to portray more expressive communication through props and movements.