MUSIC, OUTDOOR LIFE, PLAY, AESTHETIC PROCESSES, EDUCATION

Region: North
Municipality: Frederikshavn
By: Jerup
Year: 2021
Artist: Signe Højmark
DAILY OFFER: Mariehønen Children's Home

Our biggest challenge in snip storytelling was whether we could engage all the children and capture their attention, as we have a number of children who have significant challenges. This went beyond all expectations. We have a very quiet girl who started to flower, sing unmotivated and walk in front in our PlayArt activities and in everyday life. One boy did not want to join in, he has difficulty concentrating, he sat the first time watching, running around doing all sorts of other things, then he joined in singing and playing. Another boy who is very quiet ended up gaining so much confidence, he jumped around and played all the animals from the animal sounds.

We weren't very good at music before the programme, but have found that music gets children and adults more out of their comfort zone. So it's definitely something we're continuing with.

The kids have started playing on everything, especially things they find in nature. Everything has a sound and the children have found that out. This is a different game than they usually play. Just as soon as one child has found a sound, the others join in and find their own sound.

The staff have also found their sound, 2 staff in particular have grown and profiled from this course, the 2 are still finding new sounds everywhere, even in their free time. They are both great at jumping in when the children find sounds, and helping the children develop sounds and singing. We have always been very mindful that it is the process and not the product we focus on, therefore following the children's tracks is not new to us, but the sounds are new to us, that each thing/people has its own sound.

We use the music in a completely different way, before we sang a few songs and put music on from youtube, we still do that, but we have become much better at using the outdoor space as the musical space.

We are very careful to include the curriculum in this process, but in our evaluation, we can see that it has come quite automatically to include the curriculum. We have clearly got something to work on and develop further.

We are still curious about (and something we need to develop further is;) how to get more of our colours into this. Our colour wheel in this case is split into 4 quarters, with a box for each quarter. They need to be filled in more, in terms of music and sound. Ex. What sound can red color have, this we are still curious about.

Liselotte Knudsen

Head of Department in Mariehønen Children's Home