By Sarah Light, staff writer

No talking, just lots of expressing.

That&8217;s what Jack Hockenberry encouraged a class of pre-kindergarten students to do at the start of another one of his &8220;Silent Symphony Adventure&8221; workshops Wednesday morning at the Brookside Education Center.

Designed to emphasize that learning starts with the arts, the Silent Symphony Adventure program gives children the chance to have fun with poetry and music and to create their own original art while also listening to symphony music and seeing the musical instruments that produce it.

&8220;All children are born artists,&8221; Hockenberry said. &8220;The problem is keeping them that way when they get older.&8221;

During each of the workshops, Hockenberry&8217;s &8220;Silent Symphony&8221; poem is read aloud to the students as orchestra music expressing the colors, shapes and actions of the poem is played.

An artist sketches a theme for each verse of the poem, and the children get the chance to learn more about each of the instruments included in an orchestra.

Following this, the music continues and the preschoolers transform the black and white sketches into master artworks with paint, materials and glue.

Then they hang their art on hooks under 10 music stands where each verse of the poem is printed.

The process, Hockenberry said, aims to show children that there is a way inside each of them to create art. The workshop avoids any words or actions that would discourage children from believing they are all born as artists.

And now he&8217;s planning to take the program statewide, he said.

As a former English teacher, Albert Lea Art Center Coordinator Rosalie Block said it was a thrill for her to see the children who participated in Wednesday&8217;s workshop get excited about poetry.

Not only were they exposed to poetry, but they were also given the chance to have a hands-on experience involving art as well, where they were allowed to use creativity to illustrate whatever they chose, Block said.

&8220;That&8217;s the neat part of it too &8212; how it gets the imagination going,&8221; she said.

In addition to these benefits, research has also confirmed that early childhood education helps increase neurological development, Hockenberry said.

After all, the most critical neurological development in children occurs between birth and age 3, he noted.

&8220;Children love music, they love poetry, they love drama and they love art,&8221; Hockenberry said.

Last year, a &8220;Silent Symphony Adventure&8221; book and compact disk were created to become a lasting legacy for the Albert Lea Sesquicentennial. The book featured the photography of Robin McGaughey and Hockenberry&8217;s &8220;Silent Symphony&8221; poem. It is available at the Art Center upon request.

The images used in the book were taken during a similar workshop in 2005, when &8220;Silent Symphony Adventure&8221; was staged at Albert Lea High School. At the end of the book are the poem and the actual artwork created by this original set of preschool students.