What the Music Tells Us - Exploring Emotions Through Music

Advanced
Age: 4-7
20-30 min
Children listen to music, move freely, and explore how sounds and rhythms make them feel and move.
Flexibility Self-regulation
Art Movement Music
  • CD or playlist with music representing different emotions, such as happiness, sadness, anger, and fear
  • For variations:
  • Four large-format paper clouds, each labeled with one of the emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear)
  • Four colored hoops, with each color representing a specific emotion
  • Painting supplies: paper, brushes, tempera paints
  • Protective aprons for children and materials to cover the painting area
What the Music Tells Us - Exploring Emotions Through Music

Print version

Preparation

For variations:

  • Create four large paper clouds by cutting sturdier paper sheets into cloud shapes and labeling each with one of the emotions.
  • Set up four colored hoops, each assigned to an emotion.
  • Prepare enough painting paper, brushes, and tempera for each child.
  • Protect the painting area with a cover and have protective aprons ready for the children.

Implementation

Gather the children in a circle and explain that they will explore how music can make us feel. Start by gently rubbing your ears together with the children to “wake them up” for better listening. Then lead some light stretching and shaking movements to prepare the body for movement.

Tell the children that the music they will hear might remind them of different feelings, and that they can use their bodies to show what the music makes them feel or imagine.

Play the first piece of music and let the children listen quietly for a few moments. After listening, ask:

  • What kind of feeling or picture does this music bring to your mind?
  • How does your body want to move when you hear it?

Encourage children to move freely, interpreting the music in their own way.

When the music stops, pause and ask how their bodies feel now:

  • Do your arms feel light or heavy? Are your legs moving fast or slow?
  • Do you feel calm, excited, warm, cool, still, or restless?

Repeat the process with other music pieces, allowing time for listening, moving, and reflecting after each one.

Emphasize that everyone can experience and express the music differently, and that there is no right or wrong way to move.

Reflection

After all the music pieces have been explored, invite the children to sit down and relax.

Guide them through a few deep breaths, exhaling slowly.

Ask:

  • How did you feel while listening and moving?
  • Was there a piece of music you especially liked? Why?
  • Did any movements or sounds feel strange or new?

Highlight that every feeling and experience is valuable, and that music can help us understand and express our emotions.

Variations and Additional Ideas

Clouds

Place large paper clouds on the floor, each labeled with an emotion such as happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. As the music plays, children move to the cloud that represents the feeling they associate with the piece. This helps them connect movement and space with emotional awareness.

Hoops

Use colored hoops, with each color representing a particular feeling. After listening to a piece of music, children step into the hoop that best matches the emotion they felt. This variation supports decision-making and personal interpretation.

Painting

Give each child a large sheet of paper and tempera paints. While listening to the music, they paint using colors and shapes that reflect what they feel. This approach allows for creative, individual expression and helps children visualize emotions through art.

Body outline

Prepare a large sheet of paper with the contour of a child’s body and hang it on the wall.

Provide colored pastels so that children can paint their feelings inside the body outline, using different colors to show where and how they feel emotions while listening to music.

Music and feelings diary

Create a shared music diary for the group, where children and teachers can record the pieces of music they listened to and the feelings connected with each one.

Over time, this diary can grow into a visual and emotional map of the group’s experiences with music.