A musical masterpiece is easier than you think! This easy lesson combines art and music with social-emotional learning.
Today, I’d love to share a cute little activity that can be used throughout the year and kids love it! It’s called: Musical Masterpiece. It’s all about using the Arts to teach students to accept others and appreciate their differences through artistic expression.
Have you ever created a Musical Masterpiece? This is a super fun activity to do with all ages and it teaches acceptance of others and their ideas and talents. Here’s what you will need:
A set of instructions written down on a chart for student to see so they are clear with the process.
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Blank white paper
Here is the basic idea of a Musical Masterpiece: Put on some music for students to enjoy. Classical is always a favorite in my classroom. Have students begin drawing ANYTHING. Turn the music off after 5-10 minutes. Students take their pencils and move to another desk in the classroom. The music starts and then students begin to ADD to the drawing already started. Keep doing this until students have moved to several different desks.
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Then, instruct students to pick out three colors of pencil crayons. Begin the process again but this time coloring. Make sure you leave a little time at the end for the original student to add some finishing touches onto their drawing and coloring. This way, they will feel some ownership to their original drawing while also feeling like it’s a part of a group effort. The pride the students feel in their musical masterpiece is heart-warming.
Before you begin this lesson, be sure to have a discussion about everyone being different and unique and that everyone has different skills. Their job is to add to what is already there and feel good about their own contribution.
The beauty of this lesson is that you are using Art (drawing and coloring) and Music to teach students about Art but more importantly about acceptance of each other.
Moving forward from this lesson, I recommend introducing your students to mindfulness. You can read more about mindfulness in this blog post.
Such a fun idea! I'm going to try this next week and I'll let you know how it goes!!
: )
Susanna
Whimsy Workshop Teaching
Thanks Susanna! Your kids will love it!
Shelley
Oh this is great! I think it would be interesting to do it at the beginning of the year and the end of the year too. Compare the difference once they know each other's personalities and see how it affects their artwork. I love incorporating music and art with teaching. Pinning this idea!
You know Kathy, I was thinking the same thing about doing it at the beginning and then the end of the year. Although, I have to say, it takes an amount of trust amongst students to "put yourself out there". Thanks for visiting!
🙂 Shelley
Love this! I can't wait to do it this week! My kiddos love art, so they'll really love this.
How do you join the Bright Ideas blog hop???
Leah
Grasty's 2nd Grade Goodies
Hi Leah,
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and commenting. 🙂
At this time we aren't adding anyone else. This started as a group of friends networking together and wanting to produce quality blog posts. Since we have almost 150 people involved at this point, we just can't add anymore because of the time and energy involved in it. We do encourage others to find a group of teachers that have similar interests to do something similar. Here is a link to a forum post on it on TPT: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=33920
🙂 Shelley
I love the movement factor, that they stay in one place for a while, but then are allowed to move. I think the step by step process of drawing first then coloring would make student's work neater and "owned by them" more so than just completing and assignment.
Thank you Shelley for sharing this great idea. I'm an English teacher in Serres, Greece and I'm going to use your idea when teaching character traits and the importance of respecting others. Children love art, music and moving around in the classroom so I'm sure they will have fun doing this wonderful activity. Then they can talk about their work of art in English and see that through group effort they can create something unique. Again thank you very much!
Paschalia,
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and sharing your thoughts with me. I have to say, I was a wee bit excited when I saw that I had a visitor from Greece. Not only are my ideas making it all the way over there but I visited Greece in 2010 and fell in LOVE! Where is Serres? I visited Rhodes (my fav), Santorini and Athens. I am so glad to hear that you will be using this idea because Music and Art really is an international language.
I'm a MUSIC teacher and I love, love, love this! I could use this to talk about timbre, teamwork, improvisation, etc. So many transfers!
What great ideas! I'm glad my post helped spark that!
Love your idea. Going to try this next week in my music class