Today we are lucky to have countless activities, programs, exhibits and performances at which to expose children to the arts—and just as many places to enroll them to bring out their inner artist. Those first dance classes with toddlers in tutus, first trials with instruments (recorders anyone?), field trips to the museum, concerts in the park and so much more enrich us all.
Art
I think kids are born with a desire and curiosity to create things. Young children usually love to color, cut and paste things together to have something to give to their parents. My own children have never huge fans of sitting down to color but prefer using yarn for all sorts of projects. My older kids recently taught my youngest how to finger knit, and my daughter is excellent at crocheting. Finding the right medium is certainly important. Another medium to consider is photography. Try giving your kids their own digital camera to see life from their perspective. One of my favorite pastimes as a middle schooler was to take turns bringing disposable cameras with my friends to recess and then plastering my room with the prints. Now I take photos for other families!
Kids are destined to get messy. Whether youngsters like finger painting or spin art, allow them the luxury of that mess is laudable, but sometimes a mama doesn’t have the bandwidth for the mess. Good news! There are many great mess-free ways to introduce and encourage artistic flourishes. The Crayola Color Wonder products amazingly won’t color on anything but their specific paper (great for traveling!), and letting kids “paint” the sidewalk or anything else with paintbrushes and water is another fun option.
Art was introduced to me by my parents—simple arts and crafts as a kid, like making valentines with my dad for my mom, as well as watching my dad freehand draw and paint some Disney characters for my room when I was young. My mom also loved to repaint rooms in bold colors, and it was fun to see how much a simple coat of paint could change the mood of a whole room. I also remember her trying new art projects herself, like painting stained glass, crafting swags in the ’90s and teaching her daycare kids cute preschool crafts. I also was given my dad’s drafting tools he used for work (before computers took over) and loved the fancy pencils and kneaded erasers with the fancy brush to wipe away eraser sheddings. From their example, I learned the importance of modeling what’s important to you and introducing your own hobbies and interests to your children. I loved getting to repaint and decorate my room occasionally, and I know my kids enjoy this now too.
I had great art teachers throughout my school years, and after this past school year, it will be hard to forget how important and amazing teachers are. If your children show an interest in art, make sure to schedule some conference time with their art and music teachers, too. Maybe they have ideas to further art education after school hours.
To give your kids some hands-on experience making art, be sure to visit the Hallmark Kaleidoscope Museum in Crown Center. For art closer to home, consider planning an art focused playdate. Themed playdates can be fun to put a new spin on getting together and can range from a music and play dough playdate for the little tykes to a paint-by-number playdate for the older kids while they listen to a podcast or audiobook together.
Music
Can you imagine life without music? No silly nursery rhymes, no radio in the car, no music to listen to while you wait, no concerts, no soundtracks or advertising jingles? Music adds joy to our lives and really sets a mood or tone for a situation or event.
My dad was the one to introduce me to music and let me go wild with those buy-one-CD-get-12-free deals from Columbia House, as well as gifting me with a 61-CD disc changer that was like my own personal jukebox! Even listening to music from different eras or sharing your own favorite music with your family could be a fun way to incorporate music into your week. One idea is to start “Music Mondays,” rotating throughout the month the person who gets to select and share favorite music with the family over or after dinner. This is fun on road trips, too! Add watching music videos to your evenings and discuss whether the video conveys the song well or not.
Beyond simply listening to music, your children can learn how to play their own music. Currently, my kids think I’m mean for making them take piano lessons until they’re 10 years old, but it’s important to my husband and me to have our kids be able to read music, a skill they’ll benefit from the rest of their lives. I enjoyed singing in choir while I grew up but never got the knack of reading music, so I had to memorize everything. My husband taught himself how to play guitar in college but can’t read music either. We want our children to learn the language of music, so all three of them began piano lessons at age 5. Our eldest is now 11 and has continued her lessons.
Look for ways to broaden your kids’ tastes in music. “I like all kinds of music, so I introduce them to that through my music collection,” Lori Tate, mother of three, says. “This past week I was playing barbershop choir music for them. I’ve recently moved my older kids from Disney musicals to having them watch actual musicals.”
Rose Miller, mother of four, recommends piano as a foundational instrument that helps kids understand and appreciate music for life. She also says parents have to be willing to hunt for the right instructor. “We recently switched teachers to someone more engaging and who is helping them follow their interests in pursuing being on a worship team or playing with a band someday,” she says. “The two who are playing band instruments now have done well because of their piano background. We also bought them a ukulele a couple years ago, and they have a blast with it. There is lots of happy noise in my home, and my favorite thing is when they play and sing together!”
Chelsea Kinser (as Nurse Bartlett), Emilie Karas (as Sarah Wakeman a.k.a. Private Lyon Wakeman), Jason Francescon (as Dr. William Hire), and Yetunde Felix-Ukwu (as Nurse Hughes) in The Coterie and UMKC Theatre’s Secret Soldiers: Heroines in Disguise, written by Wendy Lement, co-directed by Jeff Church & Bree Elrod, and produced in community partnership with Girls on the Run. On stage at The Coterie January 22-February 10, 2019. Photo by J. Robert Schraeder and courtesy of The Coterie Theatre.
Live Performance
Performances are the fun part of celebrating everyone’s talent! From outdoor street performers at farmers markets and summer concerts in the park, Kansas City has lots to offer. Being a part of a live audience is magical and heightens the experience of any performance. For an easy entry, grab some tickets to your local high school productions. For a special holiday tradition, take your family to see The Nutcracker Ballet this Christmas season at the Kansas City Ballet. My parents took me as a young girl, and now I take my daughter.
If your child is the performer, make a big deal about it! Performances in the arts are usually a long time in the making and the accumulation of many weeks or months of practice to learn a routine, song or script. Bouquets and special dinners are always a special treat for a job well done.
Museum Exhibits
One of my favorite classes was history of art, which I was able to take while studying abroad in Spain. We would study some art and then take a field trip to actually see it in person—and it was so much more interesting! Even if you have gladly returned your children to school this month, find out what they are learning about and enhance that education by taking them to an exhibit either as a family field trip or a one-on-one date to see the art they are learning about. The experience will make learning more tangible. Plan a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art or the Nerman Museum to inspire the young artists in your home. Museums showcase the history of things, so if your family or child has a specific interest, do a quick search for a specific museum to learn more about it. Museums such as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the Arabia Steamboat Museum, the American Jazz Museum or the Money Museum. You even could make it a family goal to visit a new museum each month together.
Written Word
I love books and reading, so I couldn’t leave out the written word when writing about the arts. This does not mean just novels, but also picture books with beautiful illustrations, coffee table books with incredible photography, and poetry and song lyrics that express feelings in a way speaking can’t always accomplish. If your child loves literature and words, check out story time at your local library, a poetry reading or even a high school speech competition. Even looking up and reading the lyrics along with favorite songs can be enjoyable, as can helping kids start their own poetry notebooks. Take your children to their favorite author event, book signing or book release. I fondly remember attending the midnight release of the subsequent Harry Potter books at Barnes and Noble when I was in high school.
Culinary Art
When I was a fresh mom filled with fun ideas, I let my toddlers paint colored yogurt onto their animal crackers for a fun joint activity and snack. Now that they’re older, they can enjoy incredible food shows and competitions, as well as children’s cookbooks and classes. If your children are becoming quite the foodies, take them to the farmers market or have them plan and prepare a meal.
Classes
The metro offers plenty of free ways to experience numerous aspects of art, like amazing murals downtown, but numerous classes are available for both kids and adults to learn or enhance a new artistic skill. Classes make great birthday and Christmas gifts, too. Just remember that practice makes perfect, and each student is unique in talents and learning style—whether a child or a parent!
Jennifer Brooks, mother of three, makes a point to be intentional about arts exposure. “Our family incorporates lots of art in our lives. We look at famous works of art and then try to make a version of our own while learning a little bit about the artist. We take our kids to art museums when we can and one theater, dance or orchestra performance a year,” she says. “We listen to lots of different types of music, too. Since I used to be a dance teacher, I will do some of the games I used to use like freeze dance, shadow dancing and circle dances. If they show an interest in something, we’ll do our best to explore it.”
According to my children’s phenomenal piano teacher, Rachel D’Ardenne, herself a mother of three, the arts are not easy, but any accomplished athlete, dancer, artist or musician persists. “There’s no other way to be good at something,” she says, “and enjoy the benefits of a skill that doesn’t require discipline, time, effort and struggle.” Be persistent about engaging your children in the arts. After all, as Albert Einstein says, “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.”
Stephanie Loux has also been a fan of the arts and encourages her three children to experience various forms of art throughout their lives.