Earlyarts Creative Care Pack 5

1. Music and Singing

i) Launching online on Tuesday 28th April is ‘On Stage at Home with Clangers and Nordoff Robins’ – a brand new series of wonderful videos for music, movement, body and voice using homemade musical instruments with young children. Created and performed by Louise Gregg, a Nordoff Robbins music therapist, with a little helping hand from the Clangers, these songs are designed to have a positive impact on our health and well-being. Those of us who are old enough to remember the Clangers will enjoy it immensely! https://www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk/news/on-stage-at-home-with-nordoff-robbins-and-the-clangers/.

ii) Manchester Museum's Muso baby sessions for parents and babies are now being delivered online as Muso Baby Virtual! on a closed facebook page by music therapist Rachel Swanick each Tuesday morning 10- 11.30 am. Sessions include live music / singing, online chat offering emotional support for parents and guided bedtime meditations to support well-being. Live or recorded sessions can be found at: Muso Baby Virtual! Or more information: https://www.facebook.com/Culturekidsmanchester/.

iii) The fabulous team at More Music have developed some great music, singing and clapping resources for families to try out at home. Also check out their link (bottom of page) to the Dance for Parkinson’s Disease website which has lots of simple to follow movements to music with story based warm- ups - ideal for families at home. Take a look here: https://moremusic.org.uk/news/more-music-from-home/.

iv) Sing-Up have produced a fantastic resource of singalong songs, with their playlists organised into easy categories including silly songs, inspiring songs, relaxing songs and movement songs. You wont be able to stop singing in the bath, the garden or the kitchen after this! https://www.singup.org/blog/article/1429-just-add-singing.

v) Hot off the press is Kirklees’ awesome multilingual project, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, to encourage family singing and celebrate our rich diversity, as featured by the BBCs Tiny Happy People. Explore this super project here: https://www.musicinkirklees.co.uk/year-of-music-2023/all-join-in/ and join in with English, Makaton, Spanish, German, Urdu, Punjabi, Shina, Hungarian, Polish or Chinese here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTwz9H353EJ3VOHLyTBxTMQ.

2. Art, Design, Materials and Mixed Media

i) What do you get when you take two animals and blend them together? A Chimera, of course! Join the Baltic’s resident artist, Mat Fleming, to learn how to make your own mythical chimera collage. All you'll need is a magazine, some glue and some paper. And, as with all good workshops, this one starts with a cat… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpMDPvSS-5A.

ii) AccessArt has many resources suitable for children, teenagers and parents to use at home. Focussing on drawing, printmaking, sculpture, painting and digital media, each resource guides you excellently through the process and new resources are added each week: https://www.accessart.org.uk/art-resources-for-home/.

iii) Why not Get Creative by trying your hand at something new? The fab Get Creative team normally gather creative ideas from local communities around the country for the annual festival of local creative events in May. But this year you can #GetCreativeAtHome. Simply select your favourite artform and just… get creative! https://getcreativeuk.com/activities.

iv) The ingenious Mini Mad Things are dedicated to sparking the imagination by discovering fascinating costumes, props and accessories that help creative play and build relationships. Their craft blog has a series of enchanting arts and crafts ideas to do at home that will ignite even the most bored imagination! Play starts here: https://minimadthings.com/blogs/news.

3. Dance and Movement

i) Following the success of dancer Anna Daly’s interactive performance of Duvet Dancing for young children, the author and trainer, Anne O'Connor, has written an article for Nursery World with some simple ideas for activities that you can do at home, inspired by... well, duvets and dancing! Watch the film and read the article here: https://www.annadaly.co.uk/project09.

ii) The amazing global resource, Dance Alone Together, has put together an inspiring and invigorating dance portal. You can watch wonderful dance performances, join dance classes or take starting points and ideas to create your own dance from leading choreographers. Dive in and take your pick at: https://dancingalonetogether.org/.

iii) The fabulous Alicia Graham from Dance Steps is running weekly family dance sessions on Fridays at 10am. Still available to watch is last week’s awesome session was themed around Superheroes: https://dancesteps.co/little-steps-2/. Don’t forget your glitter masks! Alicia also runs sessions for bigger kids here: https://dancesteps.co/jnr-steps-2/.

iv) The lovely Tara Baker from Flying High Dance is running some fabulous creative dance sessions for families on zoom every Friday from 10.30am – 11.30am. To get the zoom link, please message them on their fb page: https://www.facebook.com/FlyingHighDance/.

4. Museums and Galleries

i) Chatsworth House have created some super learning resources for creative families adapted from sessions that are usually delivered onsite at Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey or Lismore Castle. Organised into age-group categories, and with reference to curriculum links, there is something here for everyone to enjoy at home, in the garden or during your daily exercise: https://www.chatsworth.org/your-visit/learning/learning-resources/.

ii) East Ridings museums are bringing their collections to life through a wonderful series of Tiny Challenges. Are yours and your little ones’ brains and bodies up to it? Find out here: https://www.eastridingmuseums.co.uk/more-than-history/tiny-challenges/.

iii) Ever wondered what your community looked like from above, centuries ago? Take a look at Britain from the Air’s incredible collection of aerial photographs of almost everywhere in Britain from 1919 to 2006. Start by zooming in to your favourite area on the map, then select the images you want to see. Great starters for stories with your little ones about history, geography, architecture and the world around us: https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/map?country=global&view.

iv) The adventurous Cartoon Museum have created a series of resources on how to draw cartoons. Explore the tools, caricatures, story lines and humour behind cartoon-making and open up your children’s weird and wonderful inner worlds: https://www.cartoonmuseum.org/learning-resources.

v) Tune in to The Cooper Art Gallery, part of Barnsley Museums, every Wednesday at 10.30am to hear stories from the awesome ‘Wow Said The Owl’ exhibition. Stories will be told with the help of their resident puppets who might also help you try out some nature and owl inspired crafts and activities: www.cooper-gallery.com/wow-wednesdays.

5. Story and Role Play

i) Download the free audiobook, Katha With Karadi, for an excellent read with your little ones all about the pandemic and how to cope with it. Written by @csoundar, this lovely book features music by 3 Brothers and A Violin, and illustrations by Kanika Nair. Alongside this are some wonderful story readings: https://www.karaditales.com/kathawithkaradi/ or live stories at 5.30pm every day on: https://www.facebook.com/karaditales/.

ii) Renowned storyteller, author and children’s theatre director, Natasha Holmes, performs some of her best loved stories every week for the next month. Watch Natasha’s first Suitcase Story from around the world here: https://vimeo.com/user4282205 and catch up with her weekly updates here: https://www.facebook.com/TellTaleHeartsTheatreCo.

iii) Check out the new BBC adaptation based on early years consultant Laura Henry-Allain’s lovely children’s books. Amazingly, this is the first mainstream animated series featuring a black British family, but hopefully the first of many so that all our children see strong, positive images of themselves. If you missed the broadcast then catch up with the series on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ghpx.

iv) Join the talented actress, puppeteer and storyteller, Rachel Riggs, in her retelling on some famous tales here: https://bit.ly/3f5usoi, or making puppets here: https://bit.ly/3cQ21bL or enjoy her craft puppet show where you can learn how to make Cloud Child dolls, rainbow swirls and experience Cloud Child performed with Makaton sign language here: https://www.artslive.com/courses/.

v) The fabulous actor and children’s author, David Walliams is opening up his audio books. Enjoy free access to a story a day here: https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses/ as well as exploring his catchup page if you missed his readings from the previous week.

vi) Finally, the wonderful Joanna Grace of Sensory Stories has pulled together a superb list of resources specifically for people with additional educational needs, across all subject areas, here: http://www.thesensoryprojects.co.uk/covid19-resources

For more information visit https://earlyarts.co.uk/blog/creative-education-ideas-and-opportunities-for-families-and-schools-5