Seb's rainbow of instruments
I just love it when children take my ideas and extend them into realms I wouldn’t have imagined. I was teaching my preschool group of all boys a rhythm instrument song called Sends a Rainbow and I merely mentioned the idea of choosing some scarves to make a colourful playing space for the instruments. Three year-old Seb, who has an older sister “into art” and a mum who decribes herself as “consultant to Eve and Seb”, chose exactly the right shades to make the seven-part spectrum and then started colour-matching instruments to go onto each scarf. You can see in the picture he has matched the blue sleigh bells to the blue scarf and even matched the golden-coloured brass finger cymbals to the yellow scarf. He has a green shaker-egg in his hand which he later puts onto the green scarf.
The following week, Seb’s mum brought in a wooden rainbow toy puzzle that was a favourite plaything with both of her kids.
There is always room in my “lessons” for a child or a group of children to take the activity into another direction through their inventiveness. That’s why I often run over time – we are too busy playing to watch the clock.
Music, there’s nothing quite like it!
