Emily is fascinated with volcanoes and talks often of them and her interest in wanting to see one. She has lots of questions. She is also fascinated with the story of the Firebird. We have checked out every book from the library and heard lots of versions of Firebird story. She also likes to listen to the music from the Firebird Suite by Stravinsky.

This week her two interests intersected and she was delighted. The girls discovered that we had the DVD Fantasia (Fantasia 2000 to be precise). Included is a sketch featuring the Firebird Suite. Emily discovered that there is a firebird who is the spirit of lava that chases down a sprite and burns her. It does sound sad, but the sprite survives and brings the forest beauty back. Emily has her own interpretation of the story. In her version the spite is the firebird and the spirit of lava is Kashchei.

Emily had Robby make a playlist of three of the movements from the Firebird Suite and created a dancing version of the story that she has preforming for us. We love her fascination and imagination with the story, but also her interest in exploring different versions of the same thing and make her own adaptation. We also love her growing interest in classical music.

The girls invited me to a concert and this was the performance. The little one was excellent as a drummer and the large one had lots of confidence. The original song is from an episode of Angelia Ballerina that Emily likes, but hasn’t watched in a while. I think her word memory is a lot better than mine. I loved the impromptu concert!