Inspired by the Sahara desert of Africa, we explored both fine and course sand to create textured paint!  Working with fine motor skills children used small spoons to scoop and dump their desired amount of sand within their paint.....or sometimes scooping paint into the sand, or even dumping sand right on top of the canvas. Proclamations of discoveries and observations could be heard around the room, as children freely experimented with the media...."this feels rough!"..."I put yellow in the blue and it turned GREEN!"

We discussed the word texture, feeling the different sands and how the texture changed when added to the paint.  How does it feel?...smooth, rough, scratchy, soft...?

Children were invited to interact with the animal transparencies on the light table.  Some children decided to work on their fine motor skills by tracing the outline of the animal and letters.  Younger children enjoyed working on both fine and gross motor skills as they painted directly on the light table. You could overhear small voices exclaiming, "Elephant! Zebra! Lion!"  Our homeschool classes carefully painted within the animal outlines and we decided to create mono-prints!

We had a wonderful 3 days filled with loads of art making, laughter, and friendship!  Children had opportunities to engage in sensory and creative play as well as experiment with a variety of media and tools as they embraced the creative process!  

We examined snowflakes and children were asked, "what facts do you know about snowflakes?"  They shared their ideas on how they form, their uniqueness, and what they are made of...and what fun they are to catch on one's tongue!  We then talked about symmetry, finding symmetrical objects and noticing the symmetry within snowflake patterns.  We also introduced positive and negative space within this project.  Campers worked with multiple stencils, sponges, brushes, and brayers to explore these basic elements of design.

We started the day by practicing with sketching pencils and learning how to control our pencils in order to draw light sketching lines.  After children were invited to chose an item from a variety of winter themed objects placed around the studio.  Campers were encouraged to draw "what they see"  noticing details, and filling their page.  They enjoyed putting objects together to create their own still life! 

The children were so excited to paint on the easels!  They were invited to chose their subject matter, approach, and tools to use on their canvas painting.  It was so much fun walking around seeing this hightened level of engagement and each canvas so individual and unique.  A few students kept coming back to this project....spending a total of 3 hours on their canvas!  One of our students had the idea to wrap his canvas to give as a gift!  We followed his lead and each child designed their own wrapping paper, wrapped up their paintings, and left with the most precious gifts to give to their loved ones!

​In art class we explored LINES, one of the basic elements of design, through sculpture and painting.  Ms. Kara nearly jumped for joy when two young artists walked in the door and asked, “are we going to sing the line song again?!?”  Well, yes friends, yes we are!! J It was wonderful to know that they not only remembered it from the week before, but had been practicing it at home!

​Our camping scene that Mr. Benjamin drew on the chalkboard this week gave us a perfect opportunity to revisit landscapes and the idea of a horizon line.  Upon drawing the students attention to the camping scene, N exclaimed “do you remember the horizon line?….there’s one (as he ran up and pointed to the horizon line drawn on the chalkboard)!”  I was, and still am, a very proud teacher!

​Children were also invited to explore the properties of lines through “dancing lines” this activity allowed children to manipulate and create their own lines while moving, laughing, and noticing nuances of a curvy, wavy, or a twirling line. 

​A table full of materials all representing lines such as pipe cleaners, wire, buttons, spools, yarn, or popsicle sticks, invited the children to bring their own ideas as they experimented and created line sculptures!  They were also able to make connections and draw from the book we read during circle time “Lines that Wiggle” by Candance Whitman as they wrapped lines to attach two popsicle sticks together or threaded lines through buttons holes.  Through experimentation, children learned the possibilities of creating with lines are endless! 

​Young artists used homemade play dough to stick and poke a variety of lines into it, making their own line sculptures.  The play dough gave the children a base to create vertical and 3-dimensional sculptures.  L realized he could use his “line” to cut the dough!

​We explored 3-dimensional lines with our mirrored soft structure that can be manipulated into a variety of lines and shapes….a straight line, a curvy line, a zig-zag line and even a “rolled up line” exclaimed S!

​Some of the children decided that their line sculptures could be interactive, so they took them to the light table for some dramatic play.  This exploration of imagination was wonderful to see as the children worked together in making new worlds, buildings, etc. for their sculptures!

​We also explored lines through painting on the easel.  Children, armed with brayers wrapped in yarn, used big gross motor movements to roll the brayer creating lines up and down their paper.  They enjoyed rolling the brayers in paint….a little yellow, and a little purple with some pink….”makes a rainbow!”  G exclaimed as she rolled her multi-colored brayer across her page.  Children experimented with color mixing…”it changed!  I made a new color!”  P announced proudly.  S, E, and A all had the idea to bring some of the items over from the line sculpture table and began using wooden spools and wheels to stamp lines and shapes.

​Finally, some friends explored drawing lines with markers and rulers.  We discussed the different jobs of the ruler…measuring and helping us draw straight lines.  We also worked on the proper way to use a ruler.  Children were invited to create their own work of art using as many lines as they could think of…wavy, zig-zag, dotted, criss-cross, diagonal, vertical, horizontal, spiral….so many lines!

​In music class this week, we went on a camping adventure, and even went searching for owls! The first thing we do when we go camping is set up our campsite, and our campfire. The rhyme “Chip chop” helped us to chop up the wood for the fire. The students enjoyed finding and picking up imaginary sticks and building a campfire, then we all sang songs around the fire! After building our fire, we were hungry, so we sang “Five little hotdogs.” This rhyme is great for encouraging kids to anticipate the final note (“BAM”), which they clapped and shouted once they had picked up on the pattern.

​We introduced the concept of instrumentation this week using the song “This land is your land” by Woodie Guthrie. First, Mr. Benjamin played and sang to teach the song to the class, and then we all sang it together. First with the guitar, then adding in some body percussion (i.e., hand claps, lap patting), and finally we transferred the song to the tuned instruments (i.e., xylophones, metallophones). Each layer of instrumentation added such wonderful elements to the mix. 

​One of the main goals of music education for preschool age children is to learn steady beat. A fun way to encourage this is to go marching, so we pretended that we were little ants, marching around the studio as we sang, “The ants go marching.” We emphasize the importance of the “rest” in music by stopping to tie our shoes each verse. Another way to encourage steady beat is to play a simple bordun, which is a steady beat played on xylophones. Our big bass bars were ringing out with a wonderful sounding bordun.

​Reading the book “In the small, small pond” by Denise Fleming helped us to learn about some of the actions of the animals in the pond. This very rhythmic book is great for encouraging steady beat, because each page follows a simple duple meter with four beats per page. We waddled and waded as the geese paraded, and circled and swirled as whirligigs twirled! 

​Then, we heard the story/song of the “Owl Moon”, a story of a little girl and boy that go out with their parents one night looking for owls. When you’re out looking for owls at night, you gotta be quiet so as to not scare away the owls, brave so that we don’t get scared, make your own heat when it’s cold by rubbing your hands together, and you gotta have hope that you’ll find one, and keep looking. Luckily for us, we did find an owl in the studio! We sat very still and quiet and looked at the owl before it flew away. Bye bye owl, see you next time!

​Bringing out the gathering drum, we sang “Nibble nibble mousekin” with the hand movements on the drum – first the mouse nibbling away, then the breeze singing in the trees. This is a wonderful short rhyme that children are drawn to, and is great because it helps children feel steady beats in duple and triple meter. Then, we made the drum into a boat and sang “Row, row, row your boat” and the said the poem “Golden Boat” with the accompanying hand symbols. Then, finally we sang the “Goodbye Song”, which some students have now dubbed the “Bye Bye Song,” and we hear that some have started singing this song at home! Thanks so much to all our creative students for another great week!

​We were so excited to begin our summer session! Our students have grown so much during the time we last saw them, we missed them and it was good to be back! To start off our summer session, we chose a farm theme. In art class, we focused on landscapes and animals, and in music class we sang songs about the farm, and did a hoedown or two.

​Artists began by looking at our farm landscape on the chalkboard and mentioning the things they noticed, “the BIG barn, the little barn, the corn field, the water, the sun” were just a few of the ideas the children mentioned.  Children were then invited to place farm animal magnets on the board where they thought the animals would like to live on the farm.  “the turtle lives in the pond!” exclaimed L and N was happy to announce that his horse, “lives in the barn!”.

​Children became familiar with the idea of a horizon line through landscapes (where the sky and ground meet).  We sang and moved to our song, “The Line Song” which highlights three types of straight lines; horizontal, vertical, and diagonal.  We drew special attention to the “side-to-side” notion of the horizontal line. 

​The horizon line provided a way to divide their paper and allowed our young artists to focus on key concepts and vocabulary such as top and bottom, sky and ground (grass), and the colors blue (light and dark) and green (light and dark).  Older artists developed their knowledge of drawing “what we see and not what we think we know“ as they allowed their sky and ground to meet at the horizon line.  A giant step in learning how to visually represent the world!

​Once our watercolor landscapes were dry, children were invited to add details with tissue paper and glue.  They were excited to create flowers, trees, apples, corn fields, clouds, or even the sun in the sky.  Children used fine motor skills as they crumpled, twisted, and tore the paper. They made deliberate decisions as they placed, and glued the tissue paper down on their landscapes. Next, children were able to add some animals to their farms by exploring the simplest form of printmaking through animal stamps. This collaging of different media asks children to expand on possibilities and consider solutions as they navigate the “how” in creating and representing their thoughts into visual media.

Some classes experimented with the silhouette of the animal outline by painting around a cut out animal.  When the cut out was lifted the children were in awe of the white silhouette that was left behind. Then they used the painted cut out and created a work of art around it.  In the end, children had created two works of art that depicted positive and negative space and gave way to discussing opposites.

Mr. Benjamin was very excited to be teaching music class again! During the past few weeks HE was the student, taking an Orff-Schulwerk Certification course at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He learned lots of fun new songs and movement games to help teach the kids the fundamental building blocks of music through the Orff method! Many thanks to Donna Massello-Chiacos for being a wonderful teacher to Mr. Benjamin, and to all of the new friends he met during the course.

​In Let’s Create Music Together class, we sang and danced all the way to Grandma’s Farm! Our chalkboard featured a lovely farm scene, with “Our Farm” in the foreground, and “Grandma’s Farm” in the background, far, far, FAR away! To get there, we had to jump on our horses and ride, and to make the sound of horse hooves we used a coconut shell. ​Mr. Benjamin played the guitar, and played an original song appropriately called “Grandma’s Farm” as we traveled along. On our way, we went through a rainstorm, a thunderstorm, and then a hailstorm, making the sound of each with a rainstick, a thunder tube, and a clatterpillar!

​When we got close to Grandma’s Farm, we could hear her ringing the triangle! We went faster so we could get there in a hurry! Once we were there, we ate a big dinner, singing “Time for dinner” (to the tune of Alouette). This song is great because it contains an octave, which we emphasize by holding our hands up in the air for the high note of the octave, and then down on the floor for the low note.

​After dinner, we always do a hoedown dance at Grandma’s Farm! Aaron Copeland’s “Hoedown” from the Rodeo suite provided the music as we promenaded and do-si-do’ed our way around the circle rug. With some of our younger students, we read the book “Barnyard Dance” by Sandra Boynton, and did all of the movements with the animals. What great fun to take a spin with the barnyard dog!

​Our older students learned more about how we can all play our instruments at the same time, and form a cohesive band, using the “mallets up!” position, “ready position,” and “now play!” position. These positions (along with the funny faces that we make) help to instill good habits of cooperative play, and they are so fun to do! When we all play at the same time, we can make beautiful music together!

​Over the past two weeks, children at The Atelier jumped into the process of papermaking!  Young artists learned that the art of papermaking, as we know it today, was first invented over 2000 years ago in China.  They learned that there are a variety of materials that paper can be made from…cloth, trees, or even recycled paper.  By using old scraps and discarded paper remnants to make our paper we were able to discuss the big ideas of recycling and repurposing….taking trash and making something new….something beautiful!  The children began by sorting the paper scraps by color and tearing it up into workable pieces.   Once the colors were sorted into separate bins, the children were able to choose the colors for their paper and blend the paper into pulp.  Children then worked in pairs as they pulled their own paper all by themselves!  They learned the vocabulary associated with paper making…mold and deckle, paper pulp, and how to “kiss” the pulp off the mold and back into the tub of pulp.  I couldn’t be more proud of these young artists! 

​The older campers had opportunities to experiment with pulp painting and achieved some interesting and unique results!

​After pulling their paper sheets, we strained the remaining pulp and sculpted 3-D forms with it.  Children used their imaginations as they created entire worlds, which were officially termed, “blobbies”.   This dramatic play went on throughout the week and promoted creative thinking and social development. 

​Campers learned about the artists Wassily Kandinsky, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, and Eric Carle and created unique works of art inspired by the famous artists.

​I love seeing the friendships that form when children are provided with a nurturing environment where they feel safe to express themselves, create, and work together.  There were wonderful collaborations among the young artists and I witnessed many friendships blossom!  Even on the first day as O and B demonstrated the beauty of two artists working together to create a large easel painting…they made two so each could take one home.  How lovely!

​Easel painting, watercolors, oil pastel resist, sketching, sculpting with clay, wearable art, dramatic play, sensory bins, collage…..we had so much fun and so much creating over our two weeks of summer camp that I can’t even express it all in words! I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking!
 

It's finally time for our bear hunt! We've been preparing for the past month, practicing our bear hunt song to the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. This week, all of the different environments in the book have been brought to life in the studio! We have long wavy grass, a deep cold river...

... thick oozy mud (actually it's "oobleck", made of cornstarch and water) ...

...a big, dark forest... (with lots of wooden items to discover)

... a swirling whirling snowstorm ... (corn starch packing peanuts on the light table, and paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling)

... and a "narrow gloomy" cave ... (well, not really that narrow, or gloomy, ... rather nice really... but with a few bears!)

"AAAAAHHH! Quick, let's go back!"

"Whew! We're safe!" 

Then, the children explored the room freely from station to station. In music class, they made swishy swashy sounds with instruments in the grasslands, played wooden Orff instruments in the forest and metal metallophones and glockenspiels in the snowstorm, and drums in the cave.

Some activities were more sensory in nature, learning about materials by manipulating them. The students discovered that the cornstarch "snow" would dissolve when put into the water! And when regular cornstarch is mixed with water, it makes MORE OOBLECK!! Playing with the strange substance was very calming and meditative for some students.

Little engineers really enjoyed building things out of wood items in our forest!

With our youngest adventurers, we had some other provocations that were more age-appropriate. Tummy time was a lot of fun with this large squishy mirror toy! Reading with mommy and daddy is always fun, too!

We can't believe how fast this session flew by! Our bear hunt adventure has almost arrived, so we continued to practice our singing skills by singing the simple pentatonic bear hunt song we created. I think our little hunters are ready for next week!

In our provocations this week, we emphasized sounds that different materials make. Instruments made out of metal vs. those made out of wood, for example. We worked on our fine motor skills by pinching the string on the finger cymbals to make it ring. G learned that if you hold the cymbal it sounds different than if the string is held.

You can see in the background that our forest is starting to grow already! That didn't deter the students from singing along to Solfege scales, doing the Kodaly hand symbols with confidence! I was so impressed to see how fast they have picked this up, in just a few short weeks! During free play provocations, MM, L, and S decided to form a band!

Our Little Artists focused on Georges Seurat, whom we like to call "Seurat the dot" - little mnemonic device to help the kids remember the name of the artist, and it's so fun to say! Famous for his painting, "Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte", Seurat worked heavily in pointillism, the art of using very small dots (LOTS of very small dots) to create a larger work of art. To emphasize this point in our provocation, we used some dyed rice.

As the children eagerly set to work, this nicely divided rice was quickly mixed into a very beautiful blend of all of the colors of the rainbow! Our youngest artists got to paint on a baby-sized light table, helping to squirt the paint on the lit surface and then manipulating it with their hands, or with a little help, dancing on the paint. Then, we made a mono print of their creations!

To continue our lesson on pointillism, Little Artists were invited to paint with dots, using cotton swabs. First, an outline is helpful for guiding where the dots will go. We talked about what an outline is, and the children brought some great ideas to the discussion, such as the "edge" or the "outside" of an object. Then, the dotting commenced! Students made up a little song while working, "Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot..."

This week we also read the book "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds, which encourages little artists not to be afraid to just try something, to make a little dot, and see where it takes you! 
​Dots of color blended, diffused, and mixed on diffusing paper! Pipettes and liquid watercolors were used to transfer the paint onto the filter paper, always with very impressive effects. 

Children wanted to continue their work with the colored water, transferring from one container to another with pipettes or by pouring and mixing colors to create new colors of their own!  These organic investigations lead to pride and ownership and an eagerness to share their discoveries.  C exclaimed, "I put pink and orange together and made my own very cool color!  I'll let you keep it for the other kids in the classes to use!" What a beautiful extension of the provocation lead by the children.  C's statement also delicately illustrates the sense of community growing within the studio!

This week we had an extra special (and extra messy!) art class! We continued our explorations into color mixing with the primary colors, while learning about chemical reactions! We used some colored baking soda and colored vinegar to produce a very exciting and colorful reaction when mixed. Red baking soda and yellow vinegar combined to create orange foam, which bubbled up and out of the container! Students were then invited to paint with the new colors that were created. It was a great time! Especially because the mess was left at the studio rather than at home ;)

Science is awesome, and fun! When combining it with art in inviting provocations, the students learn things about the world just by observing and manipulating materials. Without being lectured to, they are learning by doing! Painting with baking soda paint using brushes, and then using pipettes to drip vinegar onto the paper, created some very interesting and explosive artwork!

Young artists also explored light and painting by finger painting directly on the light table.  "oohs" and "awws" echoed throughout the studio as the toddlers delighted in watching the paint spread and smear...their fingers leaving marks for the light to shine through.  When they decided they were, "all done" we did a little printmaking by transferring their work onto a piece of paper...magic!

This week in music class, we built upon the children's knowledge of the alphabet by singing the ABC song, as well as a few other songs with the same melody - "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and "Baa baa black sheep". The melody from all of these songs is based on an old french folk song called "Ah, vous dirai-je maman." We then listened to a recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Twelve Variations on Ah, vous dirai-je maman" while dancing around the room. Encouraging the students to feel the music and move as it moves: during a slow section moving in long, slow adagio, and then faster... allegro, and presto!

We also worked on our marching, with an instrument game around the rug to "Here we go round the mulberry bush." You never know where you may end up, and what instrument you might get to play when the music stops!

As always, we allow the children time to explore a wide range of musical instruments, to enable them exposure and free play. Our little musicians had some ideas of their own, combining Boomwhackers with drums to play along with the guitar accompaniment. Even babies learn valuable lessons by up-close exposure to an instrument. It is truly amazing to see how fast many of our students catch on to music. Just as with language, they are comprehending music much, much before they have the muscular capacity to play it. When they are able, their cognitive abilities will already have been developed and they'll be ready to start playing music easily!

This week was full of fun and interesting provocations that sought to engage the children's minds and fill them with wonder. Our youngest students painted on paper (on the floor), either sitting up by themselves, or with a little assistance. It is always exciting to see the creation of a young child's first painting! These works of art are frame-worthy and will make great keepsakes for years to come!

In addition to the painting, we did some sensory exploration, using "color trays" which were each filled with interesting items in the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue. Blue yarn spilled out of clear containers, yellow scarves flew into the air, and we looked through windows that turned everything red!

With the "big kids", we continued our experimentation in color mixing (or not mixing) by infusing our art lesson with a little science! Using colored oil, and colored water and pipettes, children worked on their fine motor skills, transferring the liquids among different containers. They spent time observing the scientific properties of the substances and quickly learned that oil and water do not mix, but the oil floats on top of the water, and the only color mixing that occurs is between water-soluble or oil-soluble combinations.

Students were invited to paint on easels, and encouraged to mix their colors and try out different combinations and techniques. The works of art that they produced were truly inspired! With increased learning about the properties of color, and how they behave when mixed, the students are able to make works of increasing complexity. And the more art they produce, the more open they are to trying new approaches.

The magna-tiles on the light table are always a hit! Our little engineers had a blast building rockets, castles and more out of the colorful tiles, working on not only their fine-motor skills, but also their understanding of three-dimensional space and geometry. All while having fun!

In our sensory bin this week, we had a special surprise for the kids... ICE!  The students thoroughly enjoyed transferring the cold ice cubes into buckets using tongs, helping to build finger strength. For an added treat, we supplied the students with squeeze bottles filled with watercolors, inviting them to spray the ice with color and watch what happens.

In a Little Artists class, the students were asked, "What could we do with a large block of ice? Any ideas??" They discussed some possibilities...

Then they got to work, spraying the block with colors and warm water. They knew that warm water would melt the ice, so they began to make the ordinary ice block into an ICE CAVE for our little penguin friend, who as we know lives in Antarctica.

Unfortunately for our little penguin friend, a fountain of hot "lava" (warm water with red paint) began to form in the corner, making his home quite uninhabitable.

In music class this week, we continued our exploration of the major scale, using the Boomwhackers again, but this time they were arranged from largest to smallest on a rope strung between two easels. Presenting the same objects in a different manner can spark new ideas and approaches! Students had a great time playing the colored tubes with mallets, making the notes of the C major scale.

The "colors" or notes of the major scale were reiterated through singing and signing the major scale, using the Solfege scale (Do, Re, Mi...) and Kodaly hand symbols that accompany the scale. Students were drawn to our colorful visual aid that helps to present these ideas. I was very impressed by how quickly they picked up the hand symbols, and by their beautiful singing voices!

We also practiced Dalcroze Eurhythmics to emphasize rhythmic aspects of music, by dancing to the beat. Sometimes we used colorful scarves, balloons, or feathers, pretending to be light and airy birds, or sometimes heavy plodding elephants, depending on the music playing.

This session, our ongoing theme is "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" set to music! To prepare for our bear hunt, we continued practicing our bear hunt song, on xylophones, a cappella, and on the gathering drum.

And, as always, we went for a boat ride in the upside-down gathering drum, singing "Row, row, row your boat"! This one is always a crowd pleaser!

For the first week of our second session, we explored the spectrum of colors, and the major musical (diatonic) scale. In the Reggio-Emilia philosophy, the children’s learning environment is considered one of the three “teachers”, (with the other two being the parents, and the instructor). Therefore, we used the studio space to awaken the visual sense by creating color stations around the room. Each station contained items such as magnifying glasses, toy bugs, scoops, pom poms, ropes, balls, and more, all matched to the color of the station.

In our art classes this week we began by exploring the color stations.  Sorting items by individual colors eliminates distractions and allows children to focus on the specific color and concept.   The selected items at each station were an invitation for imagination and creation.  Children strengthened fine motor skills by squeezing oversized tweezers to pick up and drop pom pom balls into buckets.  Color pegs and bugs were transformed into people and families on playgrounds.

This week we explored paint media, this time mixing it from a dry powder. Children were invited to mix their own paint from paint powder and water.  The children were given glass dishes with a scoop of Natural Earth powder  (pigmented with natural minerals!). After children investigated the paint in its powder form, they were asked what would happen if they were to add water.  Armed with squirt bottles of water, our artists observed the scientific properties of the substance as it changed from a dry to a wet medium.  “ooohh, it’s changing to PAINT” exclaimed C. Some artists delighted in the kinesthetic activity of squeeeeeezing the bottle and found that the paint became more like watercolor.  Other children were very gentle and precise with the amount of water they added and found their paint was thicker and “goopey”.  Children shared their paint colors with each other as they created their own unique paintings.  While swirling blue and yellow paint onto her paper, A noticed the colors mixing and exclaimed, “GREEN!”

Our baby artists also got to explore color through our color stations and with our paint made from fruits and veggies!  A sensory delight as C spread, squeezed, and smooshed the paint around the table surface.

Our beautiful homemade play dough gave way to building, manipulating, and sculpting three-dimensional color!  Oceans swelled with octopi, starfish, and turtles; imaginative creatures were formed; and “soup”, “tea”, and “pizza” were served as children created upon the tabletop.  Many children experimented with color mixing by smashing the play dough together.  M was amazed to see that she now had orange play dough after smooshing the red and yellow dough together.

Little Artists classes were guided through a weaving project as we discussed the different materials that people can weave in making clothes, rugs, or blankets. Children were able to practice their cutting skills as they created their looms.  The selected strips of paper were woven into the looms and the chant of the weaving pattern could be overheard as the children worked, “over, under, over, under, over….”  It was phenomenal to see the level of concentration and focus in each child as they engaged in the calming weaving process.  Each work of art was beautiful in brilliant patterned color!

This week in music class we approached the concept of notes as being “colors” in music. The human ear perceives sound waves within a range of frequencies, with lower notes having longer wavelengths, and higher pitches having shorter wavelengths. This is analogous to the way our eyes perceive color – as different frequencies of light. The red side of the visible light spectrum has longer, and the violet side shorter wavelengths. We introduced this concept using several different activities designed to enhance cognitive, physical/kinesthetic, and verbal development.

We introduced the Solfège C major scale (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do) using Kodàly hand symbols, using a visual aid to present the scale with each note represented by a color of the rainbow. Using the hand symbols helped them to connect the sounds we were making and hearing with a physical representation. Starting at the lowest “Do” note, the hand symbol of a fist is kept low, at our bellies, and then works its way up to the forehead as we go through the major scale.  To present the same material a different, more kinesthetic way, we used Boomwhackers, colored tubes that are tuned to the C major scale. The students had a great time whacking the Boomwhackers all around the studio, hearing the different pitches produced.

For our provocations this week, we placed different Orff instruments around the room at our color stations. At the warm color stations (red, orange, and yellow) we placed the “warm sounding” xylophones, whereas at the cool color stations (green, blue, purple) we placed the colder metal instruments, such as metallophone, glockenspiel, tambourines and bells. Each child and caregiver could explore the instruments together, and as I circled around the room playing light background guitar music in D pentatonic, the sounds filling the room from all sides created an enchanting effect. A box of fun shaker instruments, guiros, cabasas, castanets, and wood blocks was also presented.

We read the book “Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You?” by Dr. Suess, which is a great tool for practicing different sounds with our mouths. Some children knew the book well, and proudly made the sounds in the book with great skill, while some of our younger students that have not yet experienced the book observed the other kids intently, studying every move. It was apparent how important the group dynamic is for social and cognitive development, as children look to their peers for learning the things that are meaningful to them at that stage. Conversely, older kids take ownership of and solidify their knowledge by presenting it to younger students.

Near the end of class, we invited the students back to the rug to play the big gathering drum. This session, we are planning a special “Going on a Bear Hunt” adventure, in which we will make the famous book by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury come alive in the studio at the end of the session! To prepare for this special event, we are going to be practicing the book every week around the gathering drum. We had lots of fun making the “swishy, swashy” sounds of the grass by rubbing our hands across the drum head, or the “tiptoe, tiptoe” sounds of creeping through the bear cave, by lightly tapping the drum with our fingertips. Stay tuned for future episodes of our adventure!