This evening Andrew had his second orchestra concert of the year. They played four songs written by Tchaikovsky.
Mari’s Band Concert
Mari is an awesome tuba player! Here is her first band concert from 2018, well, one song. The tubas actually get to play the melody for part of the song, which is cool
Two notes:
- Mari really is good at tuba. She gets rave reviews from her teachers.
- Hearing the kids play in their bands is awesome. For one of the first times in their life they are part of something big and impressive.
Mari’s Mime Show
For the past month or so Mari has been staying after school to work on a mime show. She worked with a group of kids on a few different mimes.
Andrew’s Orchestra Concert
Now that the kids are back in school they are all back to their instruments: Andrew is playing the Cello, Mari the Tuba, and Elliot the Saxophone. It is fun to hear them practicing again and they are all doing well.
Tonight we had our first concert of the school year, for Andrew’s orchestra.
First Day of School
Today all of the kids started school. The three older kids are all going to school this year at the local public schools. Lucia and Rose are still at home and Lucia is having some introductory kindergarten lessons with Susan.
Drama Performances
The kids had their drama performances this week. I had some technical difficulties during the recording. Someone called during Elliot’s and I had to leave during Andrew’s because Rose was ready to explore.
Moving up in the (music) world
This year Andrew and Mari both started playing new instruments – Tuba for Mari and Cello for Andrew. In recent weeks they have both progressed beyond the entry-level classes that they were in. Mari started playing with the full fifth grade orchestra a couple of weeks ago and yesterday in class she was particularly proud of being called out for her skills. She was asked to come to the front of the class to play a solo of Jingle Bells.
Andrew will join the full seventh grade orchestra at Indian Hills Junior High next week. His friend Will is already in this group and Andrew is excited for some more complex work.
First Day of School
First day of school today!
Grades:
Andrew – 7
Mari – 5
Elliot – 4
Lu – Preschool (year 1)
Rose – Crawler
After a year’s hiatus, Bean Sprout Playgarden is back! Lu is excited to have some daily friends coming over.
Home Work
This weekend, and over the past couple of weeks, our work around the house has continued. We started with the bathrooms by installing a new toilet that we got from toiletable.com. Then Susan painted the front door and we cleaned the garage and the storage room. This weekend we tackled more projects, including using some of the kids’ watercolor paintings as wallpaper, painting part of the basement, and Elliot and I built an addition on to the playset. All of this work has come about because of several factors, including Rose being older, Susan’s program starting again, and school starting soon.
