Elements of plastique animée used during eurhythmics classes with pre­‍‑school children in the light of contemporary conceptions of creative thinking

Abstract

The use of elements of plastique animée when working with pre­‍‑school children does not produce spectacular effects on an artistic level, though the employment of them has a huge influence on a creative and emotional development of children and significantly affects the development of their creative approach to the surrounding world. It would be advisable then to discuss this issue more broadly. In the developmental psychology, Jean Piaget was one of the first to explain these processes. Leo Wygotsky, in turn, is an author of a contrasting socio­‍‑cultural theory; still, both of them emphasize the dominance of active learning over the passive one. The method of eurhythmics fully complies with this objective by the use of a dynamic creative activity in order to experience musical phenomena first before they get defined in theory. Many of the fundamental cognitive abilities of a child develop on the grounds of their social interactions with adults and peers, and many tasks utilized in the eurhythmic method allow to gain this sort of experience. As indicated by Rudolph Schaffer, each human adapts the surroundings to their needs over the course of one’s development, i.e. moulds the surrounding reality in the manner that one finds to be optimal. When working with children during eurhythmics classes, we create the conditions under which satisfying the needs from following levels of the Maslow’s hierarchy is clearly reflected in exercises and the ultimate need of self­‍‑fulfillment is satisfied by, inter alia, a creative movement improvisation and other elements of plastique animée that develop the potential of creative thinking.