Happy and Sad music

This activity, is a good option to:

• Produce abstract artistic compositions.
• Use colours as symbols for expressing mood. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ACTIVITY

1. Listen to some happy music and talk about how it makes us feel, then, listen to some sad music and talk about how it makes us feel. 

Talk about other things that make us feel happy and other things that make us feel sad.

Now, connect these emotions to appropriate colour symbolism.

Then, on the one hand, talk about the colours which would be used to depict happy music: warm colours (red, orange yellow) from the top of the rainbow, the colours "nearest the sun". On the other hand, talk about the colours which would be used to depict sad music: the cold colours from the blue part of the
rainbow (blue, indigo violet). 

Make an explicit connection between feeling warm and feeling happy and another connection between feeling cold and feeling sad: Happy music can make us feel warm and happy; sad music can make us feel cold and sad. 

2.Give each child a piece of paper that has a fold or line down the middle.
Ask the children to paint a sad feeling on one half of the paper, then, ask them to paint a happy feeling  on the other half.

Remind the children that we can use warm colours for happy feelings and cold colours for sad ones, but allow them to combine different colours in their own way.

End the session by asking each child to identify the sad and the happy halves of their picture.

 

Grandmother and naughty kitten

This activity, helps to:

• To develop pencil control.
• To develop spatial awareness when drawing/writing.
• To develop artistic rhythm.
• To fillallthe available space with continuous curved lines when drawing.
  
• To master the psychographic skills of writing. 
• To introduce substitution -the action of representing real objects and events by drawing.

DEVELOPMEN OF THE ACTIVITY

1. Tell the children the story of "Grandmother and the Naughty Kitten".

Grandmother was knitting mittens for her grandchildren and she fell asleep. Naughty Kitten had been sitting next to her, and watching the wool. As soon as Grandmother fell asleep, Naughty Kitten pounced!

She started playing with the ball of wool. She tugged and tugged at the ball of wool, just like this, and it began to unravel. She tugged some more and soon it wasn't a ball of wool any more, it was a tangle of lines.

As you tell the story, unravel the wool. Let it fall onto a big white sheetof paper to show the wool unravelling to form smooth, random and tangled continuous lines. Put on a writing Ring and show the children how to draw an image of the lines on the board. Model both correct grip and the rhythmic movement essential for the development of drawing/writing skills.

As you model the drawing skill, comment on your actions e ("Look at the way l'm gripping the marker. My Writing Ring Finger rests on the marker like this, and my other fingers grip the marker like this. Look at the way I'm moving my hand; can you see how I'm creating the lines, they are long and smooth and all tangled up together; can you see how I'm using allthe space to show the tangled wool? Now you have a go.Try to copy me").

Next, ask the children to imitate your work and draw the tangled wool on their boards. Give each child a Writing Ring before he or she starts to draw. 

Say the children to put the ring on the finger that rests on top of the marker. Emphasise that only the Writing Ring Finger rests on the marker.Then, check that the children have put the rings on correctly before they begin to draw.
While the children are drawing, give them individual advice about how to use the drawing materials, encouraging them to fill the white board completely.
When you feelthe children have had enough time to experiment on the boards, repeat the activity on paper using hand hugger pens that encourage the correct pencil grip. 

Allow the children to use different colours if you have them and they wish for them.