Preschool costume design is taking place in the Atelier, in preparation for Spring Music Program!

There are so many ways that children can express themselves artistically! Some creative subjects the children explore at Wild Roots are drama, learning a musical instrument, sculpture, dance, sewing, collage, photography, painting, and singing. Children learn so much from different art forms, and when we combine multiple art subjects into one project every child discovers more about themselves, and about the group they are working with. Reggio Emilia describes these different ways children express themselves as the “hundred languages of children”.

This year many children are participating in our spring music program. The theme is friendship and they will be singing songs like, “Stand By Me” and “The Friendship Song” for the recital in June. To introduce other art forms into the music class experience the children have started designing and creating their own costumes for the performance. We started by discussing friendship and what it means to them. The conversation built into things hat go together and how that relates to friendship. We brainstormed about various pairs of thing that go together and the children chose their favorites to represent in their costumes.

We first began by closing our eyes and envisioning what our things that go together looked like. For example the children who chose peanut butter and jelly described these as “sticky”, “smells good”, and as “a snack to eat”. Then many of them chose to first draw what they had thought about to put their ideas on paper. Then we discussed how to convert their designs into a costume. What colors would they use? Did they want to paint it, or cut out fabric? Then the older children spelled out their objects to write the letters on their shirts. Many of them helped the younger children with this part. Some of them have also talked about making props to go along with their costume which will bring a three dimensional aspect to their creation and to their discovery of their chosen subjects.

This costume project work has looked different for each child as they discover what they want to make. Through imagination, planing, and creating they are building confidence in themselves by seeing their ideas come to life. They are also developing their focus skills by continuing to build on their project over many weeks, and gaining relationship skills by working with their friends to get new ideas and to help each other. Over the next few weeks the children will be continuing their costume creations and their music program classes. Be sure to join us at their recital to see all their hard work and creativity come together.