Recommended Age: 3 years and onwards
Purpose: Painting to music allows children to interpret and process sensory information and allows them to take ownership of the music by creating their own impressions. Through this process-art activity, children begin to understand that things we hear, or experience can shape how we feel and what we do.
Level of Parent Involvement:
Prerequisites
- None
Materials
- 3 different coloured washable paints
- 3 paint pots
- 3 paintbrushes
- An easel
- A3 or A2 sized paper
- A smock
- A music source (iPad, phone, blue tooth speaker etc)
- Classical music
- Sponge
Preparation
- Put the paints into the paint pots and set up at the easel
Steps
- Invite the child, letting them know you have a music activity to show them today
- Go to a quiet space with the child and let them know that you are going to play a listening game
- Let the child know that sometimes when we remove a sense such as sight another sense is more noticeable such as hearing
- Lay down with the child and close your eyes, invite the child to close their eyes
- Try to do this for at least one minute, then ask the child what sounds they heard, you may like to count how many sounds you noticed
- This time let the child know that you are going to play the game again, this time playing a piece of music (no more than 1-2 minutes, for example Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Debussy
- This time ask the child, “what did you notice?” Or “how did that music make you feel”
- The aspects of music to note are infinite—instruments, tones, feelings evoked by the music, dynamics, or things that the music reminded them of
- Go with the child to the easel where the paint has been set up
- Invite the child to put on their smock
- Let the child know that this time you are going to play the music and invite the child to paint what they hear or feel
- Begin playing the music and invite the child to paint
- When the child is finished ask the child to explain their painting to you in relation to the music, pointing to different elements of their picture asking them what they were feeling or thinking at the time or what was happening with the music, was is fast or slow or dark or cheerful etc
- Let the child know where they may put their painting to dry
- The child may wipe the easel with a damp sponge to remove any excess paint and remove their smock
Variations
- The child may do this at a table if they don’t have an easel
- The child may do this same exercise without paints, providing other mediums for an artistic response to music such as oil pastels, chalk pastels, charcoal etc
