During quarantine I started collecting a folder of videos on my computer of "talents" of the kids. Some of these are a bit old - some are newer. But here is a first version of a virtual talent show.
Here is Matthew reciting To My Valentine by Ogden Nash. He memorized it and recited it for us. This is two years old now and Matthew has moved on to reciting Robert Burns with a great Scottish accent. We'll try to get that in a future post.
This is the one and only violin performance Anna has been able to do. It was in the school foyer on the last day before Christmas break - they also played Christmas songs, but I only took a short clip of a video. She was learning violin last year but the instruction was cut short when coronavirus hit. Now she is trying to learn a little on her own at home. Anna is on the far left in this video.
This is a Lego Rube Goldberg type machine Grant worked on. He built it from a kit, but his persistence even when things didn't work out was cute. He's a good builder and my experience working in engineering is things never work the first time. Tweak it and try again...and don't get discouraged.
John learned this song last year in first grade for Thanksgiving. So this video is more than a year old. I liked his animated dancing.
I have been sort of teaching the kids piano. I don't play well but took lessons a couple years as a kid so I can read music and know the basics. Here is a song Emma has been working on.
Bonus!!
Did I mention I play the piano badly? I recently read an article about a letter Kurt Vonnegut wrote to a class of high school students. The story goes that class wrote to a bunch of famous authors and he was the only one that wrote back. His advice was to "practice any art" not even to become good at it but to experience "becoming" and make your soul grow. I found it very inspiring.
Anyway, I tried to have John record me playing a song - I wasn't specific about telling him where to point the camera, and this is what we ended up with. I didn't want to re-record because I didn't play any wrong notes so didn't want to tempt fate by going for another take. This is from the Simplified Hymns book.
