activity, book play, fine motor activity, music

How to Draw a Piano Using Sidewalk Chalk

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Grab your grown up and get ready to go outside and learn how to draw a piano using sidewalk chalk for a fun, free, musical theme activity for kids!

This is one of those unusual activities for preschoolers that puts a spin on your traditional hopscotch and adds a whimsy, unexpected, element. Inspired by the book 88 Instruments, written by Chris Barton and illustrated by Louis Thomas; and The Bear and the Piano, written and illustrated by David Litchfield, this is one of those piano activities for preschoolers that’s sure to leave a lasting impression, while encouraging your child to get outside, move their body, flex their drawing muscles, and learn some musical notes too.

The idea behind this preschool activity isn’t necessarily to learn how to draw a piano using sidewalk chalk, despite the title. The idea is to have a piano on the sidewalk (so, first thing first — teaching you how to draw said piano), to have gigantic fun with! Above you’ll find illustrated instructions for your child to lead the way. Here’s a cheat sheet on the four steps illustrated above for the adults:

Draw a VERY large rectangle using chalk on the sidewalk. Make seven rectangles inside the large rectangles to be the keys. Follow the illustration to see where to draw the black bars. Your bars can be any color chalk!
Write the notes onto each key. Start with D, then E. Then continue with F, G, A and B.
To start, dip the feet of one plastic animal into one color of washable paint, then make footprints and create an animal track across your paper.
Jump from one key to another. Choose your own keys at first. After, have your adult call out letters (or keys) and make your own rules. For example, jump with one foot on A. Or, make a pattern: jump E, G, B. See any sticks nearby? Toss it onto a key and jump over that key. Are you a piano student? Print out your scales or a snippet of a musical score and use your feet to “play” the music!

If you’re wondering what the best sidewalk chalk is … we don’t really know. We know we love using Crayola Washable Sidewalk Chalk based on the chalk we’ve tried but we haven’t yet done a true feature-by-feature comparison. We feel Crayola chalk stays looking like chalk the longest without causing an instant powdery mess or quickly staining fingers. We also like the glittery version! That said, we found an article in The Chicago Tribune from December 2020 that named the best sidewalk chalk with tests and reasoning.

TALKING POINTS FOR 88 INSTRUMENTS BOOK:

What was your favorite part of 88 Instruments?
Did you like the instrument the boy selected? What would you have chosen?
Do you remember a time when you had to focus and learn something new? What did you have to learn?
Was it scary because it was new?
What did you do to get past the scared feeling? If you didn’t find it scary, how did it feel to you?
What steps did you take to get started?
Have you ever felt like something new was a little too much? Tell me about it!
Did you come up with little things you would do in order to learn bit by bit?
Is there an instrument you want to play? Which one? Why that instrument?
After reading this book, has your instrument choice changed?
Is there anything that you didn’t understand in this book?
Is there anything specific about this 88 Instruments book you’d like to talk about?