Music and Art Day at Grandmomma's House

Today I had the opportunity to exercise two of my very favorite roles in life -- being a grandmother and being a music and art teacher. As those of you know who read my blog regularly, both of my daughters are homeschooling now. One daughter lives in Ft. Smith, AR -- sadly, much too far away to be able to make the kind of regular, consistent impact that I would dearly love to make. The other daughter lives in Huntsville -- still an hour away from my house, but definitely doable. The Huntsville daughter recently invited me to have her two oldest children one day every month for the purpose of teaching them music and art. Today was our first day. Maggie and Allie were eager students, ready to soak in whatever I wanted to share with them. And, I didn't want to miss a minute of this precious time I had to do what I love with two little girls who are so special in my life. The only slight educational challenge I had was how to engage an 11-year-old AND a 4 1/2-year-old at the same time. With a little extra planning everything worked out well.

We began by filling a page with tempera paints of all colors in whatever random designs they chose. As you can tell in the photo above, Allie tends to be more deliberate and organized, while Maggie is exuberant and enthusiastic --always so pleased when she figures out a way to do her assignments and projects successfully. We laid these aside to dry -- you'll see the finished product later -- and then started on some music lessons. Who says you need fancy, expensive instruments to learn about rhythm?
We concentrated on quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests for this session (now better known as "walk," "running," and "shhhh.") A few spatulas and cookware made great percussion instruments, and music from The Lion King ("I Just Can't Wait to Be King") jazzed up our drills and patterns. They arranged and rearranged flashcards and made some great patterns of their own.
Then we headed to the piano. After all, what good is rhythm without some pitches and melodies? Here you see the sisters "making beautiful music together" playing a great duet on the black keys. We had fun lifting the lid to discover why some of the notes are low and some are high. Allie quickly learned "Old McDonald Had a Farm," and I'm sure Maggie will have it learned by next time as well.

We stopped for lunch and then started our study of today's artist -- Laurel Burch. We learned about her life, saw a video interview made the year before she died, and we found lots of examples of her work. It was then their turn to create a Fantastic Feline in the style of Laurel Burch. We started by drawing and then added color with oil pastels. Notice the intense concentration of both girls.

Just mention the name Laurel Burch now, and I'm sure they will be glad to tell you all about her. :) When our cats were done, we stopped for an ice cream break (Sorry, Julie, I could have said fruits and veggies, but it just wouldn't have been the truth. Maybe next time.)

We had just enough time left to finish our last project -- the one that started with the tempera paints. They were to create a stringed instrument using painted paper, strips of construction paper, buttons and sequins. Maggie decided hers was a ukelele, and Allie's is a violin. They look pretty pleased with the results, don't they?
The day flew by. There were just a few folks missing that would have made the day COMPLETE -- Granddaddy and the 7 other best grandchildren in the world. :) My mental wheels are spinning overtime coming up with more ideas for next month. I wonder if they'd enjoy Wayne Thiebaud and his awesome paintings of cakes, and we need to put some half notes in those rhythm patterns. . . . hmmmmmm. I hope THEY had a good time. This Grandmomma loved it.