Hansel and Gretel

WOW!!! We went and saw the opera of Hansel and Gretel today. We have been to quite a few children's operas, but this was our first full-length opera. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but it was amazing!

This was a new production in that it added puppets! And, they were incredible. Some highlights:

• cat puppet that used 3 puppeters to operate it
• Hansel and Gretel's parents walked on stilts (so they were about 8 foot tall)
• the "14 angels" were flying puppets
• the Sandman was adorable and used 2-3 puppeters
• the witch was 12 foot tall! Incredible! And, she used an additional 4 puppeters (besides the opera singer)! It was just amazing!!!

The whole thing was just larger than life. A friend emailed that she had some additional tickets for tomorrow night, and we would have went again if we didn't have a previous commitment. What a great show!!!

To the Opera

Houston Grand Opera offers a student-adapted opera for children in 4th-8th grades. We're excited to be going this year for the first time. (If you live in Houston, there might still be tickets available. Tickets are just $10 each.) I was really excited when I got a call last week from a volunteer docent who said she'd be coming out to tell our students about opera in general, this particular opera The Elixir of Love, and show clips from this opera!. I was thrilled that they were willing to do this for just 10 homeschoolers! And, we only had 6 here for the presentation. The lady was wonderful and I'm excited about going to see this opera.

Alex has been to see 5 or 6 operas for children with Houston Grand Opera to Go. In fact, we went to see Hansel and Gretel just a few weeks ago. Three years ago, we also went to our first full-length opera,  which was also Hansel and Gretel. It was incredible! (Next week's production will be shortened to 2 hours.)

I've been enjoying yet another of Jimmie's Squidoo pages, Opera for Children. I've requested a few books at the library. And, her page reminded me to look for clips of the opera online, like the one above which is a short summary with brief clips of this opera. The opera is sung in Italian, but there will be English subtitles. Also, we know the basic story now, so it'll be easy to follow. It is a comedy and has lots of lively music, so I hope all of the kids (and moms) have a wonderful time.

Math Fun for Fall and Halloween

We've been playing some great fall & Halloween math games the past few days. I'm sorry I forgot whose blog I read about it on, but these games come from Mathwire.

A fun game to work on coordinates

On this activity (and there is also a monster), they tell you how to color each grid square, and when you're done you have a picture. Cute!

And, with these 2 guys, we were working on symmetry. This would also be great to make a Jack-o-Lantern or a leaf person.

They have TONS more fun games and activities and we've enjoyed every one of them that we've tried. So, take a look and have some fun with math this month!
P.S. Marjorie had left a comment on my opera post asking about ideas for Hansel and Gretel. At Mathwire, they also have a graphing project for a gingerbread house that looks like fun!

Sing Me a Story

I think I've mentioned several times that we were studying Mozart in January because we were supposed to see a kid's version of The Magic Flute, but we missed it because of our viruses. We really enjoyed the story of The Magic Flute and particularly enjoyed a book called Sing Me a Story: the Metropolitan Opera's Book of Opera Stories for Children. We read 2 chapters of this in bed while I was sick. We read both the story of The Magic Flute and Hansel and Gretel, which we saw performed last year.

The stories in the book are fairly short and have some illustrations. But, what we really enjoyed, was acting out these operas. We got various teddy bears, dolls, etc and assigned them roles to act out. Alexandra also made props out of pony tail bands and tissue. It was a lot of fun and made the stories more "real" and memorable.

There's also a book by the same author called Dance Me a Story: Twelve Tales from the Classic Ballets. I'm adding both of these books to my wish list!