Sunday, May 15, 2011

Venetian Carnevale at Musicalia (part 1)

Multi-sensory learning
When I imagine Venetian Carnevale I see costumed revellers with bejewelled masks!  I imagine people eating, drinking, wandering about, laughing and being engaged by street musicians.

You might think that mask-making has little to do with musicality yet I love to involve children in multi-sensory projects connected to our music learning.

This year my oldest Maestros group (ages 9 and 10) have been building toward a celebration of their learning with an elaborate Venetian Carnevale party!

Masks
Waiting for our masks to dry.
This Maestros class meets once a week afterschool for 90 minutes.  The time has flown by and I wish we had a few more weeks to add more to our celebration but we're out of time.  

We've been preparing our own beautiful masks, a variety of street performances, ensemble playing on several instruments, as well as  learning a bit about Venice and the Renaissance.

Tomorrow is the big day!
The parents and siblings are invited to join us for a Grande Venetian Carnevale.

I've been at the studio setting up the space to set the scene for an afternoon in Venice.  We have a gondola, steering pole, docking pole, tables for food, water glass chimes, space for street musicians, juggling apparatus and much more.  

We had a Venetian Carnevale party 2 years ago and the kids (now graduated from Musicalia) said it was the best party ever!  I'm hoping this group will feel the same.

The next few posts will highlight how we created our Grande Venetian Carnevale (it was a 5-month process leading to this celebration) from original inspiration to mask-making to invites to party activities.   I'll post tons of pictures so you can see what things "really" looked like.

Maybe you will be inspired to create your own Venetian celebration! 


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