Making Waves: Art, Play and Mindfulness with Light

Sound and Light are ephemeral materials, moving and changing just like young children! Like kids, these materials have incredible potential for scientific exploration and creative expression. And they’re all around us! In these workshops, teaching artist Rebecca Mack leads early childhood educators in reimagining ordinary objects and circumstances in the classroom for their creative potential as tools to manipulate sound and light. Both workshops understand sound and light as waveforms of energy.
The Sound Workshop on July 23 evaluates commonly available materials for transparency and opacity, imagining possible uses for creative expression. Classroom applications include projection, movement in light and dark, shadow play, tracing and light sculpture.
The Light Workshop on July 30 introduces activators and resonators as basic components for understanding and creating with sound. Classroom applications include mindfulness, mapping, listening walks, music, and descriptive language.
Both workshops are supported by Rebecca’s illustrated book, A Handbook of Sound and Light. It is aimed at scientific understanding of these waveforms, along with applications in creative expression and the arts, and is in simple, general language. They will use examples from the book to spark thought, conversation and creativity. Educators will plan simple, elegant documentation of the children’s encounters with sound and light, ready to capture those poetic expressions of foundational concepts in science.
FREE, but advance registration is required. You may register for one or both workshops. Those who attend will receive Documentation of Professional Development. Workshops are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Arts Council.
Rebecca Mack is a musician and visual artist teaching, living and working in the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington, Vermont. A former preschool art teacher, they are the author of Handbook of Sound and Light, a creative companion for curious minds.