Do You See What I Hear?

Activity Overview

When engaging in art work with young children, we typically focus on our visual and tactile senses. However, stimulating the auditory sense can be a way of helping them connect to their emotions, and express their feelings through their work. By listening to different instrumental music, talking about how it sounds or makes us feel, we can begin to open up how we express, talk about, and work through our emotions in new ways. This multi-day activity involves much discussion, so be sure to hold space and give the student ample time to think and respond.

What You Need

• Paper

• Paint

• Paint brushes

• A device to play music on

• Music:

  • Our musical playlist

  • The musical playlist for our book Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin or

  • Any instrumental music you enjoy

Steps

1. Set up your art area. Each day, try painting different genres of music. We recommend you do all instrumental music as words can be distracting when doing work to music: classical jazz, funk, techno, rock, superhero music, suspenseful music, nature sounds, ocean animal sounds, drumming….whatever inspires you! We’ve also curated a playlist if you’d like!

2. What colors do you want to use? Allow your student to change their color choice, based on the music they are listening to.

3. Talk to your student about their reactions to the music after they have had an opportunity to listen to it for a few moments. Use the guiding questions to help scaffold your conversation. Write down their answers on a notepad and take note of any similarities or differences that you notice through the different music.

Guiding Questions

• How does this music make you feel? Is it fast or slow? Loud or soft? Scared or happy? Frustrated?

• What colors does this music want you to paint in?

• How can you paint the music?

• How does the music make you want to move your paint brush?

• Does this music remind you of anything?