Erase the Quiet

What happens when music, theater, dance, and the visual arts are combined? Everyone is an active learner! Show how your school’s talented artists can work together to erase the quiet.

• 1.

  How do you learn and express your ideas and feelings best? In music? Visual arts? Drama? Dance? Or all of them? Just think what wonderful things you and your classmates could accomplish, for example, if you combined your talents to do a puppet show, musical production, or held an Arts & Cultures Night!

• 2.

  With a small group, use your imaginations to find ways to erase the quiet—and increase the learning possibilities—in your school. Using Crayola® Erasable Colored Pencils, make a list of your ideas to combine talents in chorus, band, dance, orchestra, art, and drama.

• 3.

  Now find a colorful, compelling way to tell other people about your ideas. Use Erasable Colored Pencils on white paper to get your message across. You might start with a bold border. Erase some of the color to create special effects, either with white space or by filling in with another color.

• 4.

  Portray your ideas in bright colors and with active words. To add details and highlights, simply erase sections of color. Are you ready to carry through with your ideas by working with other students and adult leaders in your school? Make it happen!

Benefits

• Students recognize how music, theater, dance, and the visual arts can be combined to contribute to their own active learning.
• Students work in small groups to research and use critical thinking skills to identify ways in which the arts could be enhanced in their own school.
• Students creatively express their ideas with a drawing that advocates for integrated arts education.

Adaptations

• Study how the arts overlap in historical periods and in different cultures. For example, in the Tewa language, there is no word for "art" because creativity is interwoven with work, ideas, and expression of those ideas. Baking bread, chopping wood, or mak
• Write raps for math problems. Make up tunes to remember dates or country’s capitals. Create 3-D science projects. Write and produce an original puppet play in two or more languages. Learning comes alive with the arts!
• Children with special needs may prefer to start by experimenting with the eraser. Try posterboard or other stiff, slick papers for easy erasing.
• Assessment: Ask students to explain their poster, the research they did, and how they might take action to implement their ideas. Did they work collaboratively? Communicate clearly? Are their ideas creative and realistic?