Mainstreaming the expressive arts into the child care curriculum

Creating a quality child care program presents a challenge to those responsible for the care and education of young children. New teaching strategies and curricula practices have been designed to meet this challenge. One such effort has been education through the expressive arts. This thesis establishes the connection between child care and expressive arts--creative drama, creative movement, music and the visual arts--through an examination of the traditions and trends of early childhood education. It identifies the importance of play in the early childhood curriculum, and the similarity play shares with the arts--self-expression. This study examines the current state of the arts in early childhood education and provides new strategies to integrate the arts into child care curriculum in a quality and nurturing environment. It concludes with an outline of a program model, conducted by the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts (BAPA) and the Kenwood Park Children's Center (KPCC), in Bethesda, Maryland, that is working toward a full integration of the expressive arts into the child care curriculum by September of 1991.