Helping Children Appreciate the Arts
Helping Children
Appreciate the Arts
Parents must be more instrumental than ever in encouraging children to find ways of learning about and participating in the arts. Experiences with music, drawing and painting lead to increased creativity and imagination, hand-eye coordination and an understanding and appreciation of diversity.
Here are some activities which parents can use to foster an environment in which children learn to appreciate the arts:
* Create an art center with arts supplies such
as paper, crayons, markers, glue, string
and other supplies readily accessible to your child.
* Have a space designated for music and dance. Include radios, recordings,
tapes,
CD's and stereo equipment as well as instruments you purchase or
make.
* Encourage your child to read books about art, music or dance.
* Play a wide variety of music in your home. Include classical music, jazz and
music
from other cultures. Children develop an interest in the music they
hear at home.
* Provide your child with an assortment of magazines or catalogues and ask him
or
her to cut or tear out pictures and glue them to a large sheet of
paper. Encourage
your child to talk about the collage.
* Sing to and with your child.
* Ask your child to make a painting. Do not tell your child what to paint and
avoid
asking what the painting represents. Tell your child how the
painting makes you feel.
* Stop and listen to all of the interesting sounds around the house: weather
sounds,
animal sounds and sounds of household appliances. Try to imitate
the sounds
vocally with your child.
* As you imitate sounds or sing songs, accompany the sounds with body movements
or hand motions.
* As you listen to recordings and sing songs, use items such as pans or boxes to
tap
or pat a steady beat.
* Provide creative tools that can be used to paint different shapes or lines,
such as
straws, sponges or Q-tips.
* Encourage your child to create new songs or poems.
* Sing folk songs, nursery rhymes and singing games with your child, such as
She'll
be Coming Around the Mountain or London Bridge. Sing the songs
again, but
replace the words with "la" to allow your child to focus
on the melody.
* Have your child create a simple paper sculpture of an imaginary animal from
scrap
materials. Select items that combine by using tape, glue, twisting
and wrapping.
Allow him or her to discuss where the animal comes from and what it
does.
* Play "echo" by clapping a short rhythm pattern and have your child
repeat the
pattern by clapping or playing an instrument. Then reverse the
roles.
* Find the rhythms of your body: your heart beat, the beat of your breath or the
rhythm of your walk, run or skip. Create of find a song using these
rhythms.
Excerpts of this column were reprinted with permission from the National School Public Relations Association's newsletter, "It Starts on the Frontline."