February is Black History Month. This is a wonderful time where as parents and/or educators we can discuss and expose race, civil rights, artists, musicians, authors, food, public figures, and so on to celebrate the groundbreaking impact that Black History paved for so many. Educating children from a young age about the many achievements of Black History and how it has shaped cultures worldwide, provides for concrete learning experiences that permit children to build an understanding that will impact their learning, attitudes, and beliefs about diversity and multicultural education.
Prince Rogers Nelson, more commonly known as Prince, was an African American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was and still is widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of all time. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Mattie Shaw a jazz singer and social worker, and John L. Nelson, a lyricist and pianist. His parents were both from African-American families from Louisiana. After reading Little People, Big Dreams Prince by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara (Author), Cachete Jack (Illustrator) we invited the children to listen to his funky music while pretending to play the guitar just like Prince.
We set up trays with paper, placed rubber bands to become the guitar strings, dripped Colorations Tempera paint on the rubber bands, and invited the children to strum the guitars while listening to his music and create open ended art!
While the children explore painting with the rubber bands they are using their fine motor skills by practicing their pincer grasp to grab the rubber band and release it. They are experimenting with different strategies of how to flick and release the paint on the paper, exploring force when they are pushing and pulling the band, when the band is stretched by the finger they can observe all the potential energy, and kinetic energy when the child's hand releases the rubber band it loses potential energy but gains kinetic. The beauty of process art is that there are so many endless layers of learning!
