Have more time? Explore these SHORT AT-HOME ACTIVITIES with your child before coming to Symphony Center!

5-minute activity: What is Courage?

1. Have a discussion with your child: “What is courage?” Create a visual web that connects their answers to the question.

2. Ask your child to name real, non-fictional people who are courageous and real-life superheroes. Include people in our world, our city, our neighborhood and throughout history. You can then have your child list the everyday heroes in their lives, past or present, who demonstrate courage.

3. Tell your child that musicians use courage every time they play their instrument. Continue the discussion with the following prompts:

  • What makes a musician courageous?
  • What are their talents and strengths?
  • What risks do they take?
  • What do they focus on?
  • Why do they keep going when difficulties arise?
  • How do they maintain their superhero status?
  • How are YOU courageous like a musician?

7-minute activity: Symphonic Superhero Trading Cards

1. Have your child choose their favorite instrument from the orchestra. Use this guide as a reference.

2. Tell your child to imagine a musician playing this instrument as a Symphonic Superhero.

3. Have them draw the Symphonic Superhero they just imagined on a trading-card sized piece of construction paper or an index card. When they’re finished drawing, have them write down the courageous characteristics of their Symphonic Superhero on the back of the card.

4. Listen to a selection from the concert, and have them raise their card whenever they hear their Symphonic Superhero in the music.

10-minute+ activity: The Superhero Inside Me

1. Explain that musicians and composers do brave things every day by creating music from inside their hearts and souls and sharing it with the world.

2. Listen to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, Mvt. 2. Ask “What do you hear in the music that reminds you of the idea of courage?”

3. Listen to the piece together again, but this time have your child focus their imagination to create a story by using the prompts below.

  • What do you do that is courageous?
  • What is your superpower and what do you look like?
  • What courageous actions are you imagining as the music plays?