Health and Wellbeing
Helping Children Express Themselves Using Art & Music
Give children who can't find the words another way to show how they feel, using art and music and little more than crayons.
- 1 hour 5 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 1 CPD hour
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
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What you'll learn
- Run a warm-up where children match colours and marks to their feelings
- Lead a music-guided drawing session that lets children express emotion without words
- Check in with vulnerable children beforehand and offer a way to opt out
- Let children explain their own artwork instead of interpreting it for them
- Use shared making to open up conversations children find hard to start
About this course
Some children can't tell you what's wrong. They don't have the words, or saying it out loud is too much. Give them crayons and something to do with their hands, though, and a lot of it comes out anyway.
Talking is easier when your hands are busy and nobody's looking straight at you. At one primary school, a group of Year 5 children, several of them grieving, sewed a dress together and talked more openly than they ever had in class. You don't need a sewing machine to get the same effect.
You'll leave with two activities to use straight away: matching colours and marks to feelings, and drawing freely to music. You'll also know the ground rules that keep them safe. Check in first with a child who's had a loss, let anyone opt out, and never interpret a child's picture for them.
- For governors, support staff and teaching assistants. Early years, primary, secondary and special.
Recording
- 65 min
Webinar playback