by Sofia Lopez-Ibor.
The author writes: " In Ancient Greece poetry, music, dance and viusal arts were core values for the culture--thus, cultivating the body, the mind and the spirit was the ultimate goal of education. We seem to have lost that unity in our schooling."
and
"Visual and performing arts affect our emotions and our senses.... In my classes...we both perceive and express each art form separately and also combine them to discover their common elements.... Experiencing a single concept through multiple art forms makes a profound impact on learning and the class becomes an exciting adventure. "
This book is explodes with colorful children's artwork, action photos of kid movement, music, art, drama, and movement ideas that pop open our imaginations. Each exploration has an abundance of ideas for music, movement, art, drama and more. In Make a Face, children make their favorite face in a hollow frame, form teams of performers of faces and guessers, sing and play Mirror, Mirror, speak a Nursery Rhyme with different facial and body expressions, write a poem, make black and white faces a la "Faccia la Faccia" book by Munari, make faces with found objects, or do an origami facial collage--and that's just the list for one concept! Children's books are suggested for each section, too.
Explore Butterflies & Caterpillars, 2 Little Bluebirds, Bees, Snails, Make a Face, Blue is the Sea, Chickens, Aiken Drum, Pezzettino, Dancing Dolls, Newspaper, Pictograms, Trees, Limericks, Rombo Romboide.
Then, a section on Movement Sequence in which the goal is to observe a movement sequence and reinforce kinesthetic memory using toys, statue game, flip books, aluminum foil sculpture, ensemble movement, and more. Next is Storyboards, incorporating several different songs and art techniques, and then Weaving.
One of the most intriguing sections is Graphic Notation, because it is an intensely creative process and allows the children to improvise a piece, exploring ideas with their bodies, with things, with art, and finding ways to notate their pieces so others can perform them. Fascinating!
In Connecting Image to Music, Art and Poetry, explore Molas, and 4 artworks by Miro, Van Gogh, and Matisse. The final section, Music Listening and the Visual Arts, explores various ways to prepare students for perceiving music. Visual and kinesthetic listening maps, graphic notation, dramatizing, Orff and percussion, great art help imagine The Cuckoo, Fishes in the Sea, Trains and The Planets.
Lopez-Ibor teaches uses the ideas and processes of Orff Schulwerk, always seeking the experience of the music, the story, the art, the dance. Activities for PreK - Middle School are useable by general classroom teachers and art specialists as well as music teachers. This is a huge creative resource! 242 pp. Paperback
