Piano Lessons

Sydney, Delaney and I started taking piano lessons in mid-February and have been LOVING it. Mr. Luke, a man from our church who is not a "piano teacher" but has been playing the piano since he was 4, is our instructor. He comes to our house on Tuesday afternoons and usually brings his two daughters (ages 4 and 5) along to play with Sadey. It's good for use all.

Sydney and I are working on the 2nd book of the Bastien series. I am not ashamed to say that she is whipping me, but it's been a healthy competition for us both.

Delaney is still working on the first book in that series. Truth be told, she plays just as well and just as many songs as Sydney and I. The thing that's keeping her in that first book is that she can't read the music and has been playing completely by ear. She does a fabulous job, but of course she should probably learn how to read the music before she gets too far into her lessons. She's doing great though and I'm extremely proud of her for sticking with it even when she gets frustrated.

Adventures ~ Week 14

Week 13 was a Thanksgiving Unit. We did read the Thanksgiving Story, but skipped most of the planned activities and did things on our own.

This week, Week 14, included the study of four more states -- Connecticut, Massachussetts, Maryland and South Carolina. We continued our bird study in science, started reading Farmer Boy and began listening to and studying The Nutcracker ballet.

We also began learning the words and history behind America The Beautiful. Apparently I was a bad student because I never realized that the song was written by a teacher visiting Pikes Peak. A dear friend of mine actually posted pictures of that area so my girls could see what Katherine Lee Bates was looking at when she wrote the poem that eventually became the song. To me, there's nothing more awe inspiring that those Purple Mountain Majesty (even when Sydney insists that they are blue).

Our Bible lesson verse for the week was John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Amen.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 11

I am so ridiculously far behind in blogging our weekly lessons. I apologiz to those of you on the MFW blogroll who have been visiting!!! I'm going to attempt to catch up in separate posts - hopefully I don't confuse you or leave out too many details since everything happened so long ago.

Anyway...

Week 11
Bible ~ We continued learning about Jesus as the Giver of Water. It really difficult to explain to a 9 year old how a person can have his spiritual thirst satisfied. She nodded her head a lot and seemed to understand, but I felt like I could never explain it well enough. Perhaps the difference is in her innocence. There's something to the idea of coming to the Lord like a child!

Social Studies ~ Last week we studied the birth of our nation and the Declaration of Independence. This week we gained a new appreciation for George Washington. What an amazing man! We also read about and tried to make our own Johnny Cakes.

Ingredients: water, butter, cornmeal, sugar and salt. Easy peasey.

I think we did something wrong because ours fell apart in the pan....

But the girls seemed to like them anyway. They tried dipping them in maple syrup and melted butter. I'm sure you will understand how surprised I was when they declared maple syrup their favorite topping *gasp*

Read Aloud ~ We're still working on Sarah Witcher's Story which is supposed to be the true story of a little girl (4ish maybe) who wandered away from the family homestead and got lost in the woods for several days. She was taken care of by a bear whom she had mistaken for the family dog. It's been a good insight into faith, family life, and the culture of the time period and my girls are hanging on every word.

Music ~ We are singing and learning all about Yankee Doodle Dandy! The girls think it's funny that macaroni (as in "Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni") referred to a stylish way of dressing and not their favorite lunch. They seem put off that the British would be making fun of the early Americans like they did. But, go USA! We all love that the early Americans took it in stride and adopted the song as their own - despite it's original cruel intentions.

More family fun

Sydney borrowed a friend's cheerleading costume for Halloween and today we made her some pompoms out of the sale ads from Sunday's paper. The other two girls were thrilled and wanted some poms of their own. Before long they were running around the house making up all sorts of cheers.

I set up my old keyboard over the weekend and the girls have been having a blast learning how to play it. I made a scale with labeled notes for Sydney and she's been going through my old song books, their Wee Sing books and our hymnal labeling all the notes. We also labeled the keys so both she and Delaney could play a few songs. Sydney has gotten quite good at reading music already - especially considering she's been at it for all of 2 days now. Here's a sample of what she's been working on.