This week’s theme:
Mysterious News: This Week in History
Fact of the day:
On July 1st 1945 Deborah Harry (lead singer of Blondie) was born.
Resources list:
Debbie dress up download; toilet roll tube, foil ball; Youtube; Costumes; Phone; Pens, paper, crayons; colourful fabrics; straight edge or ruler.
Activity 1:
Debbie Harry is well known as a style icon. Download this page, and design a crazy stage outfit for Debbie to wear. Or, collage images from magazines to create a stylish outfit for her! Don’t forget her shoes, hat, sunglasses, and anything else you think she’ll need. Share your Debbies with us on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Activity 2:
Make yourself a microphone, put on your best rock star costume and imagine you’re on stage in the infamous New York CBGB club, people are cheering for you, people are applauding, there’s a spotlight just on you, the band kick in behind you as you take to the microphone. Perform a karaoke Blondie song here, or here, or here as if you were Debbie Harry!
Activity 3:
Don’t leave people hanging on the telephone! Call a friend or family member today to find out how they are and to let them know what you’re doing. How does hearing them make you feel?
Activity 4:
Throw yourself a Blondie disco using this Blondie playlist. Dance your heart out, stretch high and low and twist to the sides to get your body moving.
Activity 5:
The song ‘Rapture’ was the first No. 1 song in the U.S. to feature rap vocals (at 1min 50 here) Make up your own rap all about your day or your week.
Activity 6:
In the video for Blondie’s ‘Rapture’, graffiti artists Lee Quiñones (known for the graffiti he made on New York subway cars during the 1970s and 1980s) and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat make cameo appearances.
Make some graffiti art inspired by the artists – try using lettering to spell your name ‘tag’ or mask off some areas to paint over or paint a multi-colourful background and draw figures in black crayon, paint, or pen on top of it like Basquiat’s artwork.
Or colour this downloadable Basquiat colouring in page.
Activity 7:
Picture this, artist Andy Warhol once created a very famous ‘pop art’ image of Debbie Harry in block colours. Over the years it has been reproduced in other colours. Hunt your house for 4 block background colours (it could be towels, sheets, tshirts, etc) to take your photograph in front of, pop-art style!
Activity 8:
A famous Blondie album was ‘Parallel Lines’, the album cover featured black and white parallel lines , which are lines that lie in the same direction as the one next to it but do not meet. You can see parallel lines all over and even in nature like here.
Have a hunt around your house, can you spot any parallel lines? Jot your findings down in a notebook, or take some photos for evidence.
With your reminders of what parallel lines look like, create some parallel lines artwork like that of Mondrian’s grid paintings. You could dip the edge of a thick cardboard box into paint to create straight matching lines, or use a ruler. Share your art work with us on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!