Bassooning and Ballooning

We were so busy on this frigid day! We began the day with a marvelous introduction to the bassoon. Tamara's friend Colleen is a classically trained bassoonist, and came to share her instrument with the Turtles. Colleen showed us how to put it together, and Kailyn wanted to know, "But how does it make music??" She showed us how the instrument played high (like Bolero) and low (like the grandfather from "Peter and the Wolf"), or happy (like the "Sorcerer's Apprentice")  or sad (as in the berceuse from Stravinsky's Firebird Suite). The children were absolutely entranced! Then she played some of our favorite songs like Twinkle Twinkle, the ABCs, and Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and the children sang along! They wanted her to play The Wheels on the Bus, but she didn't know the music, so we sang it for her!
(Check out the video at the end of the blog!)

We made Apple Crisp for tonight's Bread and Soup dinner and read Ann Morris's classic book Bread, Bread, Bread about all the ways that people eat bread around the world.

And then we headed to the John Barnes Room for some indoor exercise. We played balloon games, and then ran races in circles, trying out all kinds of movement, including crawling like "Walking Mountains!"