Summer Fun: July 3rd

Are you ready for some fun ideas to keep your kids busy this next week?

Here are five ideas to get the creative juices flowing (and please, take these ideas, build on them, make them your own, use them as a springboard for bigger and better ideas):

Day One – Ask your child to watch the moon & record changes in size and color. Dig out some binoculars or a telescope and take a closer look at the moon.

Day Two – Have your child decorate a shoe box to store treasures.

Day Three – Talk to your child about fire safety. Discuss a fire escape route and have a mock fire drill.

Day Four – Make a grocery list that fits within a budget with your child.

Day Five – Learn a tongue twister with your child. Have fun, laugh. Then discuss the importance of proper grammar – both verbal and written.

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Here is a fun activity from the book, “A Lithgow Palooza!”:

Found Sound

I’ve often marveled over how one person’s noise is another person’s music — and vice versa. Aren’t our ears strange and wonderful accessories? This palooza is quite flexible because it can be done off and on over any period for as long as it seems fun.

What to do:

Create a composition of interesting sounds you collect in your everyday life. John Cage’s infamous 1952 composition, “4’33″”, called for four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence to be filled by whatever random sounds were heard in the concert hall each night: coughs, rustling, sneezes. Considered rather radical at the time, the first performance was held in Woodstock, New York, at the Maverick Concert Hall.

Okay, silence as music might be hard to imagine. But Cage also used rubber mallets, metal hammers, toy pianos and wooden objects. So point your tape recorder toward a toilet flushing, hanging pots and pans, a fan, or the washing machine — be a maestro and create a musical composition, a la John Cage. Set sound free!

Record various sounds, exploring all over the house, in nooks and crannies. Living room sounds. Kitchen sounds. Bathroom sounds (oops, excuse me!). Take the activity outside to record in the backyard, at the park, in train stations, at stores — as many places as you can.

Try to avoid the obvious “musical” objects. Instead of the telephone’s ring, record the dial tone or a busy signal. Rather than a doorbell, try the click of the bolt lock.

Now listen to all the found sounds you’ve collected, picking and choosing favorites to use in a composition. Decide what order you want the sounds to be in, maybe jotting them down on a piece of paper: clanging pots, dripping faucet, whistle, vacuum cleaner. (A younger child can dictate a composition to an adult). You might want to think about whether there’s a scale of some kind, perhaps from lowest-pitch to highest-pitch sounds. Go back and re-record them in the particular order that you like best.

Arrange a concert hall with the tape recorder position on a pedestal, a podium perhaps in front, and chairs for the “live” audience — whether it’s the family, the family pet, or a collection of action figures. Make a sign with the name of the auditorium and a program listing the composer (that’s you!), the “instruments,” and the date. Naming the composition is half the fun: Concerto for Blender and Bathtub? Sonata in Six Spoons Sharp? Of course, you must “conduct” as the tape plays and then take a modest bow!

EXTRAPALOOZA:

Guessing Game: Take turns recording found sounds and guessing what they are. The challenge is to find ten sounds within a time limit of five minutes. This of course will involve a lot of sneaking around so that the guessers don’t see what the recorders are recording. It could even turn into a sort of found-sound hide-and-seek.

BLOGGING IDEA: Bloggers, upload your child’s found sounds to your blog. Can your readers guess what the sounds are? Blog about your child’s appreciation for sound.