Arts, Science and Peter and the Wolf

This weeks theme

This story was composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 as a way to introduce children to the instruments in a classical orchestra.  Each character in the story is given a different musical theme.  I'm not sure the exact details of who originally choreographed the story but it is also an excellent way to introduce children to ballet and theatre.  

Today at the tree I gave the girls these two items.

and

Today for art class we did some arts and crafts and made musical instruments while learning about the different types of instruments.

We started off by learning about percussion instruments.

In our kit there was a plastic case that we put different items in to listen to the sounds it would make.  We started with cotton balls, then beans then beads.

We talked about how the items bounced around inside the case creating sound.

We then turned our shaker into a tambourine by adding bells.  The tambourine is another type of percussion instrument.  They get their sound by metal pieces hitting each other and causing vibrations that we hear as sound.

We then found in our kit a gravity tube.

We played with the tube discovering the different sound we could make.

Can you get your voice to sound like the tube?

We don't need instruments to make music we can use our bodies, it's called singing.

can you find your larynx?

Coppie found it 

so did Estee

We placed our hands on our larynx and felt the vibrations as we talked and sang.  

Next up we made a drum.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product but we started out with the drum heads.

Coppelia was excited to discover that if she pounded on the drum with the cotton swabs it made a muffled sound. I was able to explain that there was a special types of drumstick that made this sound and it was called a mallet and that there were other types of drumstick that are called brushes.

We then explored our house and yard finding different things to beat on.  We would then decide if it was a high sound or a low sound.

Then we talked about the sounds inside the drum.

So we got out a jump rope.

We took turns shaking one end of the rope creating waves.  That is what sound waves look like.  The sound waves are jumping off the walls inside the drum and that is what we hear.

Next up woodwind instruments

We had a little recorder in our kit

We tried creating different sounds by blowing softer, harder, fast and slow

Then used our fingers to cover the holes to make different sounds.  The air inside is vibrating to make the sounds and when we put our fingers on the holes we change the way the air vibrates.

We then attempted to create the sounds with a blade of grass but Mommy was just not good at it.

Then we moved onto string instruments and created our very own guitar.

We then had to take a break before part 2 because the girls needed to start a band.
(video soon)

after our craft time was over we sat on the couch and watch "Peter and the Wolf".
The girls have seen many versions of Peter and the Wolf before and have love it!  There favorite version is the Disney cartoon that you can see on youtube.  When Tyler is out of town we like to snuggle in bed and watch it together.

I have told the girls how I played the duck in the ballet and would perform it at schools when I was younger.  Today was the first day that they saw the full ballet production of it performed by The Royal Ballet.

We laid out all our instruments and as they introduced the characters we found the type of instrument that matched.  Then we snuggled up and watched the rest of the ballet.

That was the end of our Mommy School lesson but during lunch we watched another ballet called

L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges