In recent news, Ryan and Evan both had art showcased at the annual Elementary Art Super Show!
Ryan's mixed media robot print
Evan's mixed media repetition whale
The week after the art show opening celebration, Ryan submitted a project to Brown's annual Science Fair Night. In the past, he's compiled collections and submitted a collection presentation. This time he wanted to do an experiment. I was super impressed at his initiative and independence in creating this project. He investigated whether or not the weight of paper would affect the flight distance of a paper airplane. His hypothesis was that the lighter planes would fly further. After gathering papers of varying weights and weighing them, he ran 5 trials with each plane, created data charts, and analyzed the results. He proved his original hypothesis wrong when he discovered the heavier planes flew further. He typed up all the info and data, and designed his presentation board. It was really cool to watch him engage in this process. Such a studious kiddo.
We attended a lot of fun performances late February into March! It makes for busy schedules, but it is valuable busy-ness for this performing arts-centered family.
First was the high school variety show, and Burke always has groups perform. This year his Symphony Orchestra played music from Jurassic Park, so he invested in giant dinosaur costumes to add a little fun flare to the performance. We had some fun with these costumes at our house before showtime.
Evan's in danger!
(Burke as dino)
A friendly T-Rex!
(Ryan as dino)
Showtime 2018!
Student/dinosaur conductor
More dinos roaming the audience while the Symphony played.
Curtain call - Dinos came out to take a bow too!
Next up... Brown School's Variety Show! Again, Ryan played the drums, and Evan played the piano. Evan also danced in the second grade group number. This year I got to perform too with the faculty, which was super fun.
The faculty dance was right after Ryan's drum set solo, so I never got to see it from the audience perspective. I got a couple cool shots from the stage, like this one.
A friend, who was in the audience, took a couple pictures and shared them with me. I was glad to have some shots from the audience view. This drum set is officially too small for him. We need to seriously start planning for a size upgrade. This year, he and Burke edited together excerpts of pop tunes minus the drum track. Ryan supplied all the percussion sounds the songs usually have.
Video: Ryan's drum set solo!
We did a mini-dance to ABC by the Jackson 5.
Part of Evan's schtick is to act like he's going to use music, and then dramatically throws his music, and plays by memory. Here he is pondering whether or not to use music.
Evan played an arrangement of Arabian Dance from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.
Video: Evan's piano solo!
Video: Evan's Second Grade group dance!
Ryan's Fourth Grade Music Program wrapped up our performance series. The program had a patriotic focus. Groups of students prepared mini-presentations on different notable American locales. As each group entered/exited the stage, the rest of the group played a little recorder song as transition music. The program ended with a patriotic song where they sang, played recorders, and Ryan played a rhythm accompaniment on the cajon.
How amazing is this picture? I am thankful to a fellow parent who shared this with me.
Ryan and his two friends present info on the Twin Towers. Their music teacher said this is the first time students have requested to present on the Towers. She guided them to be sensitive with their presentation, and I think they did great.
We are 3 short days from the official start of spring 2018, but I thought I'd share a couple February snow pictures. We finally got our one snow day of the year in early February. We forced the boys to come help us shovel the driveway. That was a lot of snow to move!
Ryan dramatically laying down in the snow.
Evan, Ryan, and Burke moving snow!
Evan sits in a snow chair.
In mid-February, my entire family gathered to celebrate my dad and Joey's winter birthdays. We had enough snow to build a snowman with cousins! This was quite possibly the best snowman that Ryan and Evan have ever been a part of building. The snow was perfect. And it was really fun to build it with Caleb and Emily, with help from Aunt Christine.
