First Piano Lesson

I just love this picture. So adorable! Today was Sam's first piano lesson with Bestemor. To say it was sweet would be an understatement. And Sam had a blast. Which is the point! They started at the table, tracing his hands and labeling the fingers 1-5, writing LH and RH on them, etc. Then they played some Orff instruments, learning the proper way to put the mallets, or what-have-you, down afterwards (instrument care 101?) and then went downstairs to the piano. She showed him the groups of black keys and had him find all the 2s, all the 3s, then showed him where C and F were (1..2..C...1..2..3..F...) and had him find all those. He was very interested in the recorders so they did that too. Then they went back upstairs and did some more Orff instruments, had a snack and did some more drawing, this time of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes (not that Sam knew what they were, but she showed him how a circle can be a note, a circle with a line can also be a note and a circle colored in with a line can also be a note.) Kewl. When I taught piano, I only ever had 2 kiddos as young as Sam, and it was slow going. But they learned and they liked it. Sam wiggled "his 1's and 2s" etc for the rest of the day. Surprisingly, Ted already knew where C and F were on the piano (?) but was very interested in the finger numbers. I told Sam to teach him. Love it! 

Ted had his 1st Leadership class today, following his regular class. He loved it. They reviewed Songham I (which Ted learned when he was 5...it'd been a while!) and talked about SWAT (can't remember what it stands for but it means they can go into any lower rank class and assist, if they teacher wants them, or they can just do the class for review.) and about their GOALS for the next 90 days. Ted wrote "My goal is to get my Brown Belt by March 5, 2009." That's a very attainable goal! He was so jazzed to be there. Now I'm on a mission to lower the cost of the program. Mr. D agreed that if I could find the same stripe material, I could just sew the stripes on his collar rather than spend $150 on a new uniform. Can you say, heading out to the fabric store tomorrow? hee. We're also going to hold off on the new double weapons (same weapons, different color, and two of them. Why? I don't know.) Anyway, very cool. 

Everyone starts back to school tomorrow. Can you hear the whooping from where you're sitting? I love my children, but I really really cannot stand the constant fighting. No wonder I was an only child. Oy. Welcome back to structure! Hooray!