Physical
Play is physical, and creating mind body connections is a powerful developmental tool, as children grow. The children of C&C are often using their minds and their bodies to play, especially when they use their fine motor skills at work with wood, clay, paper, drawing tools, paint, water, and indoor blocks. Their gross motor skills are developed outdoors in the Yards with blocks and games that involve running, jumping, balancing, and many other activities that are both mentally and physically intertwined. Children’s physical and cognitive development is supported also in Rhythms. Long-time Rhythms teacher, Sylvia Miller, wrote of play in Rhythms:
“Dramatic play is one of the important parts of the Rhythms Program. It is the most natural thing in the world for children to imitate, to ‘be’ what’s been seen, heard, felt, imagined. Immersed in dramatic play that stems from a trip, book, a discussion, they become boats, people working on a building or in the street or in the firehouse; stemming from their own interest in and knowledge of animals, the sun, stars, space, wind, etc., they become one with their subject. This affords them deep satisfaction and gives them a sense of meaningful activity and well-being, for they are using and reshaping the materials of understood experience.”
“Dramatic play is one of the important parts of the Rhythms Program. It is the most natural thing in the world for children to imitate, to ‘be’ what’s been seen, heard, felt, imagined. Immersed in dramatic play that stems from a trip, book, a discussion, they become boats, people working on a building or in the street or in the firehouse; stemming from their own interest in and knowledge of animals, the sun, stars, space, wind, etc., they become one with their subject. This affords them deep satisfaction and gives them a sense of meaningful activity and well-being, for they are using and reshaping the materials of understood experience.”