Mixed Media: Where Are the Dragons

Why Music?

Music is becoming an increasingly important part of our play. Music is great for dance parties and altering sour moods. But it’s great for so much more, too. Music is good for learning, bonding, communicating, and creating! As we have gotten to know various albums, specific songs have sparked art projects, gifts, and parties. With so many opportunities to review and share new music here on the blog, I’ve felt inspired to explore and elaborate on the connections we’re making between music and other “related arts” (as they are called at the girls’ school.)

Welcome to Week Two of Mixed Media!

In each Mixed Media post I’ll share a song and a creative project that was inspired by the song. My hope is that you will be inspired to share music with your little one in a way that gets you two (or three or four!) connected to each other and to your creative sides. This week’s song is Where Are the Dragons by Ben Rudnick and Friends. This song inspired a read-aloud and an art project!

Where Are The Dragons by Ben Rudnick and Friends

To start off, I read the book That’s Not My Dragon from Usborne Books. I love this book because it has the cutest dragons and highlights a different feature on each page with different textures. All the kids want to feel each page and invariably name the texture, e.g., knobbly, scaly, or scratchy. We also referenced the book when drawing our dragons which was most helpful for me since Scott and even Elli convinced me to draw their dragons. Sammi’s is all hers, though!

I wanted them all to use the letter D and create their dragon from that. But that was too teacher-centered for them today! Only Scott consented to use the D (he didn’t really get much choice and he loves getting his hands on the glue stick!) but he still spent a lot of time trying to pull it off the paper.

I also made a “teacher” choice by saying our only texture was sparkly because I was trying to minimize the mess. Fortunately glitter is always an exciting crafting resource and they didn’t complain. I thought of it because for a year between ages 4 and 5, Sammi’s favorite adjective was sparkly. It was even on our word wall when she first really started asking me to spell words for her to write down. She definitely loved having a sparkly dragon.

After they drew/colored their dragons, they decided what part would be sparkly. Scott absolutely loved squeezing on the glue and then sprinkling on the glitter. It took serious distraction skills to make sure Elli got her turn. When she was done he went back to his picture for round two of adding glitter. While he did that the girls wrote their names on their paper and Sammi wrote a whole sentence while Elli wrote sparkly. I really enjoy seeing them excited about writing and communicating an idea through their creativity.

We’re enjoying Ben Runick and Friends newest album, Love Is A Superpower, set to release 9/25. They’ve graciously offered to giveaway a copy of this album to a BBGU reader! Go to the review and giveaway post and leave a comment, then use Rafflecopter to manage your entries, doing as many or as few as you’d like. The giveaway is open through 9/19/2012.

Linking up at No Time For Flashcards Kids Craft Linky!