my daughter is a string player!

lots of this week has been taken up by holiday orchestra. sb has been going for a while now, and chose this time windband, choir and boomwhackers. unfortunately, her tooth still isn;t fixed as the dentist thinks the bone is tender still, so may not survive she has been referred to the hospital for review of it. she is really worried it will come out and have a false one, but has manfully been struggling with a diamond shaped tooth all month now. however one of the number of things she just can’t do is… play the clarinet.

so this sun we did some emergency viola prac, thought she was nearly grade 1 standard with a bit of luck, [well,she could sight read 2 of the exam pieces] and she can easily read the clef and translate that into notes on the viola. so dh asked on mon if there was a possibility she could transfer to the beginners strings. i think they couldn’t believe their luck as she is only viola so she has been given a fair bit of praise and practiced each night. i think it helps that having advanced at other instruments she can count rests etc. on tues we had lfish and they did some practice together which worked really well [well, apart from bb shrieking and wailing through it...]

As well as holiday orch, we have a plan to wrap up the things we should have finished last year, so we can start the next year on time! this is story of the world book 1 – i have been reading a chapter a day, tho we haven’t done additional reading, galore park junior history 2- 1 more chapter to do and galore park junior english 2 – 3 more chapters, so perhaps not there! the history i am keenest to finish, as we tie in with historyetc, and much better to be running alongside than behind. following merry;s lead, i am suggesting she practices writing in sentences now that writing isn;t so awful to her. we practiced out loud – why does the cat have a black tail… the cat has a black tail because it is a black cat etc etc, so she gets asked why was julius caesar a good emperor and she answers…. Because he conquered lots of countries. obviously this is a work in progress!! She does like the galore park junior books tho, and we do 2 question sections a time, so work through fairly slowly. She has enjoyed reading a really ancient book on kings and queens of england that i was given as a child.

BB has also done some home ed this week. she was moaning about what a noun was for some reason, and i caught sight of first language lessons so we started with a noun is a person, place, thing or idea. she has enjoyed it so far, and memorised the caterpillar poem. i remember stopping at chapter far too many with sb, still on nouns. but we shall see this time. bb rather likes having her own book to do with me currently! her reading has come on, and she is reading level 4 ORT and songbird books quite happily.

thay have both done a fair bit of lego this week as well. sb prefers sylvanians, but bb is a lego addict x x she bought some more with some birthday money found [tho i think it might have been sb;s] and so a lego city is springing up. she bought a couple of books too – a couple of beast quest !! and some lovely books tiddler and zog by julia donaldson. also dh bought some chead dvd, so they ahve watched the 3rd narnia – v nice, and also raining meatballs – v odd and i’m not sure i particularly liked it.

this weekend we are expecting my mum and dad. was aiming for a lovely ambling about time, putting them first and easing them over the first anniversary of my sisters death. however bil is off to china, so my nephew and niece coming too. i love having them visit but had other plans this weekend. however, we will have a thanksgiving feast for family love
SB and DH back from the holiday orchestra concert. her fav bit was the boomwhackers but the viola bit went well too