What do you see when you look at a plastic bag, a paper cup, and a paper plate? As adults, we see exactly the thing in front of us: a bag, a cup, and a plate. But children? They see pirate ships sailing across ocean waves. They see rain clouds and playful friends. They see a thousand possibilities waiting to happen.
This is what I discovered at a music and movement workshop in Bahrain, presented by Tuncer Ediz Toksoy and and Esin Toksoy, well-known teaching artists from Turkey. Together, they have co-founded the BOMED [Body to Music Education] Academy and specialize in music education using active, rhythmic games which build not only performance arts skills but also courage and creativity.
Over one weekend, I watched chairs become horses, cups transform into lanterns, and plastic sheeting turn into rolling ocean waves. Hula hoops became pits of lava. All it took was imagination and my willingness to play.
When we bring performance arts into education, we honour the natural curiosity of children. We place a circle on the floor and through imagination and wonder, that circle becomes a moon, a pizza, or a tree. This curiosity becomes play and that play supports learning through experience.
Performance Arts Classrooms build the essential skills of turn-taking, leading conversations, and listening to the ideas of others. When children say "Look at me! Look at my idea!", they are practicing confidence. They are learning that their creative thoughts have value.
Through music, movement, and imaginative play, children develop:
• Physical skills: balance, coordination, fine motor control, body awareness
• Focusing skills: listening to sound cues, connecting to what they see and hear
• Social Emotional skills: teamwork, communication, collective awareness, taking turns
• Creative skills: improvisation, storytelling, imagination
• Differentiated ideas: every child excels through movements, pictures, and sounds
A paper plate in the Performance Arts Classroom might become a steering wheel, a drum, a flying saucer, or a pond. Children give ordinary objects to extraordinary stories. The Performance Arts Curriculum holds the tools to bring those stories to life within drama, movement, studio arts, and music lessons.
When we support imagination in education, we support children's natural curiosity. We give them space to explore, create, and grow—one paper plate, one movement, one song at a time. Performance Arts teachers provide opportunities for every child to work at their own level. Every child finds success bringing their background and ideas to the experience. Every child discovers the simple joy of creating something so grand from something so simple.
The next time you walk by a buffet table, take a closer look at the place settings. Using your imagination, what do you see now?
Kathleen Riley
Wholes chool Music Teacher - Themaid Campus
Juilliard Link Teacher
