Two Talents

Claire showed off two of her talents last Thursday night. She participated in her school's talent show in which she played the piano, and she presented her architecture project with her SAIL class.

When the talent show was advertised to the fifth-graders, Claire immediately wanted to participate. She began working really hard on several pieces including Mozart's Turkish March, The Entertainer, and Minuet in G. Claire plays so easily by ear that a friend taught her the first song, and she learned the second by combining a kids' arrangement from one of her books with the original that's prerecorded on our piano.

Several weeks before the talent show, Claire started learning Minuet in G after she found one of my old books that I played from in high school. I did not play the song for her, nor did she hear a rendition of the tune to my knowledge. She just read the music and taught herself how to play it.

Claire practiced many hours on her pieces, but in the end decided to play only Minuet in G for the talent show.

Architecture has become Claire's newly declared, future profession when she grows up. She said she loved this architecture project because it combined so many of her favorite things--art, math, and science. She and her classmates took a field trip downtown to visit several historic buildings. The students chose which historic building they wanted to build a model of; then they measured the buildings, made exact models on a quarter-inch scale, and made electrical circuits to give the buildings light. Claire chose The Pink House because it's an art gallery today.