Beach - well sort-of

Well, today we spent some of the time at the park - with the kids just playing in the sand and the grass (there was an area for beach-volley-ball - hence the sand....).   They spent a lot of time poaking around a gopher-hole.  we also got to see the gophers (from a different hole).

 

we also bought a cheap glockenspeil (a type of xylophone) and some kazoo's.   They loved both of them!

Less TV helps!

I made a conscious effort to greatly reduce the amount of TV the kids (and I ) watch now that Foxtrot doesn't take so much time.  The amount of time they watch has been slowly increasing since Echo was born

 

Once I got up (and their show "Super Why" was done - dad had turned it on for them...)  We had violin practice with Delta.  We haven't in probably almost a month - so he did NOT want to co-operate.  He got told that he wasn't doing anything until he had done that (and we had swim lessons not much later in the day...).   Fortunately he decided to do it.  (I was going to put the baby gate up across his room (which so far he has never climbed - but we don't use it anymore either...) - but he decided to do the practice before I got it out.... and the waiting time was used getting things ready for swim lessons.    We didn't do a lot for the practice, mainly some basic stuff.

 

Swim lessons were next, and a bit of time playing at the Y.  Then it was home for lunch (and 1 more show...)

 

Then let's see....   they played on the organ some, and we also got out their other musical instruments and played a bunch.  (maracas, tamborines, etc).

 

We had a math lesson

 The math lesson was on counting - we counted pennies.  Delta can count well up to 12, then starts mixing up.   Echo can count to 4 - but does recognize that the numbers correspond to the pennies.  (wierd, she can count to 10 if she isn't counting something but just saying the numbers...)

 

I made up a simple word search puzzle - Delta did GREAT.  He found a lot of them with no help, and the last few with a little help.  Echo didn't get the idea, but I didn't really expect her to - she coloured instead.

 

They also played with that mosaic pegboard I bought - Echo just puts the pegs in anywhere - but Delta filled in a rectangle shape with different colours.  And of course, it is great sorting practice as I make them sort it when putting it away.

 

And tonight I read the Alladin story from the Childcraft set.  Sometimes I don't know if Delta is really listening to these longer stories (Echo doesn't) - but I think he gets something out of them.

 

Overall - a lot done!

Got an Organ!

Yesterday - got the violin practice in, and I'm sure I got something else in, but can't think of what. Oh yeah, and I've started teaching them the organ. We got it for free from freecycle, and used to play as a teenager. Mike wants me to use it to teach the kids - and it has taken a while to decide how to do it. Basically, for the moment, I'm going to try to sort-of do it like a suzuki piano teacher.... I'm going to grab the recordings and books. I did some searching on the internet, and got some notes meant for the teachers.... so they had their first little lesson today. I hope that I don't "mess them up" with bad technique or anything.... Did you know that organ's seem to be pretty much extinct???? Yamaha doesn't make them anymore, and I haven't found a place that carries music here for it yet..... so that is disappointing. We got a lot of music with the organ, but I was hoping to get some kid stuff, etc. The organ we got for free was probably around $10,000 when it was new.....