The Kindergarteners as Fine Artists

Today was the twins' fine arts celebration at their elementary school. I snuck out of my first grade class during math to see the whole thing. I sat down next to my friend "Ann." 

Sidenote: nearly three years ago, shortly after Ann moved to Charlottesville with tiny newborn twins, I barged into her home to pour my encouragement on her and deliver chocolate. Now these little girls (in the pink bows below) are so big, and they are the biggest fans of their older brother who just happens to be in the twins' school class.

As an extension on the kindergarten science unit on plants, this program was a collaboration between the art, music, gifted, and library teachers. They coached the kids in creating artwork, writing lyrics, and presenting and acting out narration. 

A was very serious about her job as a speaker during the show in spite of being absolutely giddy about it for days prior. She wore her power dress today and followed every cue and direction she was given exactly throughout the program.

E played his part at the xylophone for ten seconds only, and then he happily returned to his spot sitting cross-legged behind the instruments in a line of children.  I don't think he thought for one minute about how he looked or if his hair was combed.

Learning is happy in kindergarten, and each part of this program from the interpretative movement to the musical sound effects to the child-written verses, elicited smiling and giggling from the parents. I appreciated how unstressed everyone was, how pleased the children seemed to be with themselves, and how much they seemed to have mastered in the most basic ways of singing and creating.

A is fully-engaged as a kindergartner. She has endeared herself to each teacher and tells them all that they are her favorite. She loves being the helper, informs me of classroom material needs, and runs into school each day. She has come a long way since last year. I was not surprised that her flower spills off the page--she seems to have an abundance of ideas and energy for projects and tasks. 

E is the frequent winner of prize box treasures as a result of his clean-up skills at school. He likes all of the boys in his class but I don't think he has one close friend, and I don't push that. J was just like this. He still loves mental math and he has such a good ability to master sight words.

Perhaps I've mentioned here that they are mainly independent of each other at school. Their teacher reports that you wouldn't know they were siblings just by watching them. For all the time they spent together prior to kindergarten, they immediately gravitated towards children of their own gender once school started. Occasionally one of them will report on something nice that the other one did at school or something tragic that happened to their twin, but they never tattle on each other or turn each other in.

Reminder to self: I should edit the short video I took for the grandparents to see their classes' original composition "Parts of Plants".