Music and Art Doodles

This is a fun and colorful project to do when you are in between projects or nearing a vacation. I usually select some music in different languages to play. My favorites are from the Putumayo series, especially the Arabic Groove and the African Women cd's. This lesson starts off with a discussion of the differences between scribbles and doodles. After making a list together of the differences I talk about doodling with one continuous line and not overlapping a lot. Each student gets a large piece of white paper and puts their name on the back. Using permanent black markers, students start to doodle when they hear the music playing. When the music stops, the students stop doodling. I then have the students pass their papers around the table and they start at one end of the new paper in front of them and add to the doodle when the music starts. Eventually the papers will be filled with all different styles of doodles.
The next part of this project is adding color. I have made small rectangular frames so that the students can find an area they like and they trace around the inside of the frame. They will then color in all the spaces inside their frame in different ways. I demonstrate a few different techniques, but creativity is encouraged. When the rectangles are colored in, the students cut them out and glue them to colorful construction paper. Recently I have changed the project and have made different shaped tracers so the students have more of a choice. I made circular, star, heart and blob shaped tracers.