Community-Embedded Musician Alexa Thomson, viola, shares an exercise inspired by music!
Each of these videos allow children to use their creativity and move their bodies in different ways that represent changes they hear in the music. They can really stretch their imaginations through these activities.
Explore ways you can move different parts of your body: stand up and move your fingers, shake your legs, wiggle your arms like they are spaghetti noodles, twitch your nostrils, puff your cheeks, raise your arms together and straighten out like a stick. There are so many ways to move your body!
For parents, guardians, or leaders, here is a short video that will teach you how to help kids made the most of these activities.
Now, let’s put our great moves to some music.
Imagine that you are AN ICEBERG!
Now, imagine that you are BALLOON!
Let’s go on a musical WALK together!
Want to do more of these activities with your children using recordings of orchestral works? Find out more in this video:
Orchestral works referenced within the video:
- Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals (any movement) Imagine moving like, or presenting to be, the animal represented through the music.
- Vivaldi, The Four Seasons (any movement) Let the music help you imagine the different types of things you see and feel during the season the music portrays.
- Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition Imagine what would be in the picture described through the music in each short movement, and move like the different things you see in the picture.
—Alexa Thomson
Now, get up and move! What can your kids come up with?
