This family art activity, inspired by Rooftop’s study of innovation and the great American innovator Louis Armstrong, is an art activity designed to give parents and their children the opportunity to share family stories. We hope that your family will enjoy discovering the role that the arts can play in inspiring deeper inquiry through creativity and play.

The Rooftop school community will create a collaborative multi-media art project, inspired by Louis Armstrong’s collages, sharing the best of family traditions passed on to future generations.  This project is also inspired by NASA’s “The Golden Record” which features sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, including “Melancholy Blues” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven.

All Worlds, All Times

“The Golden Record,” is a phonograph record made of gold-plated copper that travels on the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sound and images selected by a NASA committee, headed by Carl Sagan, to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.  The handwritten inscription on the records: “To the makers of music — all worlds, all times.”

http://www.goldenrecord.org/

The Louis Armstrong House Museum collection contains 650 home recorded reel-to-reel tapes in hand-decorated boxes.  Here are some examples of Louis Armstrong’s tape box collages.

http://www.theparisreview.com/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5835

Download the instruction sheet for the ART IS… Family Assignment.pdf

Some examples of the artwork that families have created together.

What a Wonderful World

4th grade students create their own collages after listening to Armstrong’s classic song, “What a Wonderful World.” 

What would your wonderful world look like?