They paved the way for artists to come by breaking down barriers and making a huge impact on what they contributed through music. Ma Rainey, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin are just a few female Black Blues/Jazz artists who made music history. To honor these pioneers for #BlackHistoryMonthy we have been reading books about the artist, listening to their music, and we invited the children to paint the 'blues' with musical instrument paint brushes to connect to the arts. Blues music gets its name from its original association with melancholy subjects and sounds and the 'blue notes" used, so we decided to provide blue, white, and black tempera paint as the colors to create with.
This invitation to paint is a multilevel sensory exploration process. Through listening to the music playing on the speaker, using out of the norm paint brushes with instruments that provide even more sound, maneuvering their fine and large motor skills as they paint all over, and exploring the cool blue colors on canvas through their hands, offers children the opportunity to use multiple senses as they create.
Since children are naturally born sensory seekers, an experience such as this ignites their curiosity, provides the ability to retain even more information to make deeper connections in learning, and engages them for longer periods of time.
Giving a child a canvas with intentional unique tools pushes their imagination to limitless boundaries and honors their mind to always seek wonder in anything they do.
