Practice sheets

Just popping in from my crazy schedule of teaching all 3 of my kids piano now - ak! - to share what  I do to help my kids practice.  We are getting into the groove of having a lesson on Saturdays, and then I give them a list of what to practice on their own for the week.  I have been brainstorming how to make this easier on the kids - I've had notebooks, but they get lost, so today I went on Pinterest for "piano assignment sheets" and came up with a lot of great ideas, but nothing was just right for my middle child, so I made it based off the awesome examples I saw, and laminated it so I can write on it with a dry erase marker:

He's a HUGE Horrible Histories fan so I added some pictures from the books for him :)

My two oldest are lucky enough to have keyboards in their rooms, so I slapped a command hook up on the wall and punched a hole in the top so it could hang right where he could see it.

Here's a lovely round-up of brilliant practice chart ideas from around the web.  Happy practicing!

Creating a student

One thing that was difficult for me when starting WonderGirl on an instrument was getting rid of my expectations.  It has been almost thirty years since I was a beginning student and I remember ALWAYS standing politely and calmly during lessons.  My mom might beg to differ... ;)  But when I would try to get her to focus on something at the beginning, she'd wiggle and giggle like we were playing around.  She didn't know any different!  But the tricky part was how to turn her into that stands-at-attention kind of student, and not freak out and lose patience when she didn't immediately do it.

The breakthrough came when I decided to teach her how to read using this book:

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

It doesn't have anything to do with music, but it has everything to do with a super simple way of sitting down with your child and guiding the learning process.  I had heard raves about it for years from all different kinds of parents who swore by it, and it totally lived up to the hype.  It teaches new concepts in tiny spurts and gives the child the chance to use what they already know extensively, so it builds their confidence level as well as teaches them in a simply fantabulous way.  And it gives the parent every single thing to say so it teaches you how to teach.  My confidence level grew too!

After about a third of the book, I introduced piano with our budding teacher/student relationship.  Plus, piano is such a visual instrument that her being able to read really helped her progress and get into playing and learning it herself.  Once we had that structure, adding the violin was a natural step.

Little by little, bit by bit our relationship has grown in ways I am SO thankful for!  I love being her mom, but I never thought I could love being her piano/violin teacher as much as I do.  What a blessing it is!!

IT'S A BIG DAY!!

The Dude's birthday party centered around a mattress on the floor.  It doesn't take much with that kid!

A few months ago WG and I made a video of 3-armed singing and I likened it to when violin teachers will play the bow or the fingers for the student so they can focus on their other hand.  Then yesterday, in order to get a feel for how she's progressing, her entire lesson was simply a recital of her 3 songs for her dolls and I, who had to be good audience members and cheer and NOT give constructive tips or suggestions.  It was TOUGH!  But she had fun because it was THE WG SHOW DAY! (she LOVES to throw a show) and I was able to get a really good look at which things I should be focusing on.  First up was her left hand.

So today, I announced it was LEFT HAND DAY!!!  I said it with the exclamation points too.  Today I would be the bow, and she was the fingers the WHOLE time, WHAT A DAY!!!  I thought she'd see through my thinly veiled trick, but it totally worked.  I put a mirror 3 inches from her scroll so she could see how she was doing, and her technique was just fantastic.  Afterward I asked her if she wanted to put both hands together tomorrow, or have BOW DAY!!! (again, with all the exclamation points) and she fell for it.  "OH YES, BOW DAY!!  PLEASE BOW DAY!!"  Heh heh.

My point is that sometimes, it's nice to have a random Wednesday be a special day, with lots of extra exclamation points.  To distract us from the fact that it is, in fact, work.  It even cheered me up to think that I had something to look forward to tomorrow - a lesson where she's totally jazzed just because she gets to play the bow only.  It's the little things.

And now, I plan on using this the next time she's having a tough time with a piano lesson.  A day where I play everything in the bass clef, and she plays all the parts of the songs on the treble clef.  I'll call it CONJOINED TWIN PIANO PLAYING DAY!  Maybe.  Just another thing to mix stuff up and add superfluous exclamation points to my weekdays!

Practicing tip - timers!

I found this nifty science activity via Pinterest and then put it to good use.  It's pretty self explanatory - there's one empty glass and another with water and food coloring, and a piece of paper towel running from one to the other.  Give it some time, and the water walks from one glass to the other!  A loooot of time.... we started this about 2:30 this afternoon and it's about halfway done now.  But that wasn't our initial goal...

I set it up and we eagerly watched the color creep up the towel.  I put it within eye shot of the piano, and had WonderGirl work up two new songs in her book.  When we spied the first drops of water in the other glass, piano time was done!  It was a good 30 minutes of pure, excited practicing time, and no "when will I be done??" questions.  It wasn't up to me - it was up to science :)  I'll experiment with smaller glasses and shorter towels for quicker practicing days - and all different sorts of "timers!"

Summertime practicing

I'm back!! Did you miss me?  I missed you!  We haven't been slacking in the music department, though - WonderGirl regaled the grandparents with her piano skills, and I had 7 shows - yes, seven!! with my bands over two weekends!  It was fantastic and I am super warmed up right now :)

But now we're back and trying to get into the swing of practicing again.  It's not easy after a vacation - especially when it's summer!  There are so many more interesting things to be doing!  I stumbled on this post by a fabulous blogger, Music for Tots that gave me some hope.  Her plan for summer practicing is to give her students easy folk tunes to learn to keep up their note and sight reading, and to learn lots and lots of them.  It keeps them active and having fun!

I love the Faber 5-Finger Melodies books, and I picked up their PlayTime Piano - Level 1: Rock 'n' Roll (Faber Piano Adventures) a few weeks ago to give the summer some excitement.  We've been having fun with Rock Around the Clock and other tunes that are enticing enough that WonderGirl has motivation to learn them without too much pushing from me.  I'm taking Music for Tots advice and going back and getting more easy music for WonderGirl to play around with!  She also posts some great free sheet music to snag online!!

Oh, and the Faber Chordtime books are no slouch either.  I'm a poor pianist at best, but I was able to play some really well-written and great sounding tunes this past Christmas with the ChordTime Piano Christmas (Faber Piano Adventures).

Tis the season to have fun with practicing!






PS - Are you on Pinterest??  Holy cannoli, what an awesome site!!  I'm here, follow me so I can follow you!

Anatomy Week: teaching older kids

I've been talking about how I do lessons and practicing with my 4 year old, but I want to address older kids.  I've only been a mom for 4 years, but I've been doing this teaching gig for much longer, for 2 year olds up to sixty year olds.  I've learned a thing or two along the way....

Years ago, I attended a masterclass with the famed violinist/violist Pinchas Zuckerman.  In addition to his performing and conduction career, he is a avid educator.  The attendees were a mix of parents and teachers, and  Mr. Zuckerman opened up the floor for any questions they might have for him.  One parent stood up and asked - "How do you motivate a teenager to practice?"

After a good laugh, Mr. Zuckerman said: "You can't.  You make them do it, try and survive those years, and at some point they learn to love it and do it on their own."

I've had a few - VERY few students that picked up their instruments of their own free will and couldn't stop playing.  The rest loved playing, but didn't love the work that went into it.  I honestly don't like practicing either!  But I love the end result, so I muddle through.  And as parents, we know how hard it is to teach our kids to work, but we know it's necessary and we do it anyway.

That being said, practice time doesn't have to be an endless drudgery.  The trick is:

 Make them own it.

That's mainly it.  If they are doing it for themselves, they'll be more invested.  Is that easy to do?  Nooooo.  Is it worth it?  Yes!

Having the student research and choose their own repertoire (from an approved list), finding them friends that play that instrument as well to jam with, finding an honor ensemble they want to audition for, even giving them an audio recorder or video camera and having them be in charge of recording their latest solo as a practice assignment - all kids are different and their goals and motivators are different, but whatever that may be, they all need to want it for themselves to be successful.

And honestly, that goes for just about anything in life.  Which is why teaching them an instrument when they're young is such a powerful teaching tool that goes far beyond making music.  Now if ya'll would remind me of this when WonderGirl turns 13, I'd appreciate it :)  Stay tuned for getting toddlers to sing tomorrow!

Anatomy Week: piano practice

Also check out Practicing practicing.

Me:  It's piano time.

WonderGirl:  YAY!/NO! (it varies on the day, hour and second.  Don't them 'em see you sweat!)

If you haven't noticed the massive apparatus on WonderGirl's head, they are some serious headphones we snitched from Daddy's tech stuff.  We have all our music time when the Dude is napping because it's impossible to keep a 20 month old boy out of a super cool big sister's bizness.  To make sure he STAYS napping, she uses headphones.  I stay close by and she stays on task pretty well, although I can always pull the cord out and ask her to play me something if I suspect monkey business.

1.  Let's make a plan.  First we discuss review (warm-up).  I attack this a variety of different ways.  This was one of her earlier charts, before she had a large amount of review under her belt.

I would verbally give her some instructions- play this part so many times, this part so many times, the who song this many times, etc.  When she finished a whole page, she earned some kind of nifty reward, like a Daddy/daughter date.

Now, she has more review and her ability to focus has improved as well, so there's more to do.  Sometimes I'll make a quick list for her.

She likes to have boxes to mark off since it gives her a sense of accomplishment.  Some days I'll make the boxes to decide how many times she'll play it, other times I leave that up to her.  I find out how much she likes a certain song or not.  (I've noticed she's not a fan of A B Bop... so I always add extra turns on that when I'm doing the picking!)

Sometimes I let her make the list.  She gets to decide, and write out the songs she's chosen (I LOVE watching her phonetic abilities blossom doing activities like this!  The spellings are so creative and thoughtful!)

My only musts are that she practices both her new song, and the one just before it.  This ensures that she won't forget a song right after she passes it off and she has a nice library of songs to play whenever he heart desires.

2. Step back.  It's SO hard as a mom to not get in there, but I have to tell myself I've given her all the preparation she needs, she really needs practice working things out on her own.  I'll walk by occasionally and give her a hug or a compliment, and remind her to play on her fingertips.  Sometimes when I hear her getting frustrated, I'll slip in and help her practice the difficult parts.

3.  Check in.  When the list is all done, she comes and tells me and I usually ask her to play her new piece for me.  I give encouragement and advice, and if it isn't perfect I have to bite my tongue, because I know she'll get there eventually as long as she tries every day.  Heck, her last song took at least 3 weeks of tears and sweat to learn, but when it was finally there, there was dancing and rejoicing.  Worth all of the tantrums I had to work overtime to avert!

And when she's done, we move onto the next activity.  She ends up back at the piano throughout the day to play something familiar, show off to daddy or work on the latest song, but I let her play on her terms then.  Structured time is over, and I think an instrument should also be played.  Come by tomorrow for the anatomy of one of our violin lessons!

Anatomy Week: piano lesson

Me:  So we have to clean the living room, have a piano lesson and fold the laundry.  What order should we do them in?

WonderGirl: Piano first and no cleaning.

Me: Yeah, that's not an option.

We sit down at the piano, I put her 5 pieces of candy/fruit snacks/pretzels off to the side.

"Konnichiwa," we say together.  This is something one of my violin teachers would do with me when I was young, and it signaled the beginning of our lesson.  It is used to give us both a formal transition into our time together, past the informal chit chat we'd had as I entered the studio. It means "good afternoon" in Japanese, but you can pick any phrase you'd like.

1. Review.  We start off with something easy, something she enjoys playing.  I gently remind her about posture, but save my main critiques for later.  I like to start off with commenting on as many positives I see her doing - she usually feels so good after that, she unconsciously uses her best form.

2.  The last song we learned.  For review we pick and choose, but we always play the last thing she'd learned.  It's always the weakest (because it's the newest) and we play it through a few times.  If she messes up too much and gets frustrated, I break it down into smaller sections and praise her when she can play those right. I don't want her too frustrated before we do the new stuff.

3.  New song.  We approach this many ways - I'll play it for her first and she'll sing it or clap the rhythm with me, or we'll listen to it on the CD, or if she's excited, she jumps in head first and starts trying to play it.  I don't like playing the entire song for a while, because there's always so many mistakes.  So to keep her from getting bored or annoyed, I like to start in different places, going from the end and working back, or some random place in the middle.

4.  Recital.  When I think she's had enough and we've made enough progress for one lesson, I pick something for her in that song to play for me.  If she's ready to play it all, she does, or I'll just ask for one part played nicely.  I don't sit next to her and critique her - I move to the nearby staircase and sit like an audience member.  When she's done I applaud, and she gets what's left of the treats.

5.  Hug.  I tell her how proud I am of what she's accomplished and how much I love her.  I mostly do this because I can't help it.  Seeing my little girl work hard at something makes my heart so full!

Now, off to fold laundry.  Stay tuned for tomorrow - piano practicing!

Practicing tricks: face graffiti

I got some of the "I can't DO IT!!"-s the other day, and after saying "Serenity now!" a few times in my head, I saw a sheet of stickers.  New rule - for every part played correctly, she got a sticker on her face.  It was so random and unexpected that she started giggling and I knew I had won.  S-U-C-C-E-S-S, that's the way you spell success!!  Woohoo!!

It reminded me a bit of Becca's awesome bead idea, because I was kind of arbitrary about when I decided she'd played enough right to earn a sticker.  It kept her on her toes and out of the crabby zone.

Funny thing - the sticker I put on her chin was of a planet, and as I quickly put it on there and tried to move on, she had to know which on it was.  "It has rings," I said impatiently.  "So it has to be Saturn."

"But Neptune has rings too!  Are you sure it's Saturn??" She asked, and after pulling it off and analyzing it for a bit, declared - "It's blue, so it's definitely Neptune."  It's so fun having a 4-year old resident genius!

Practicing tricks: hat trick

What do you do when practicing the new song is pure torture (on both of you)?

Common sense says when a something is difficult, to break it up into smaller, workable pieces.  The latest song is 4 lines long, so we broke it down by line.  I asked WonderGirl to find me a hat, and wrote 1-4 on little slips of paper and put them in.

She had to wear a hat of her own, of course.

Then, she would pull a piece of paper out of the hat and play that line.  The novelty of the unknown was enough to disguise the fact that she was playing every section multiple times.  

I have to admit, I was surprised it worked - and for two days in a row, even!  Every little bit of trickery helps!

Practicing tricks: 3-armed pianist/violinist

The latest song in WonderGirl's piano book feels like a brick wall.  She's been doing so well, she's actually been teaching herself the last few songs, but all of the sudden, this new song has created a crying, frustrated, angry little girl from what was - well, the exact opposite.  Does any teacher or parent love to hear "It's-so-hard-I-can't-DO-IT-BAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"?  Because I'm not so much of a fan.  I've been taking it easy - focusing on review to get her confidence up, but today it was time to attempt it again.  Almost instantly she was declaring it impossible, and I was about ready to give up as well, when I remembered this video we'd made:



Before she could get too hysterical, I slipped my arm around her waist and declared I would be playing the left hand for her.  The sensation of a half-hug made her giggle, as well as the novelty of playing differently.  Her attitude changed, she was able to make it through the whole song within minutes and was excited to have conquered the "impossible."  Sometimes what we really need is a hug to clear our head.  I know feeling my little girl giggle and hug back helped me check my growing impatience.

We violin teachers know this is a common trick for violin lessons too - one person takes the bow and the other takes the fingers.  It's a welcome change of pace for a lesson, as well as helping the child focus more on one thing.  Do you have your own bad-mood busters?  I'd love to share them (and use them myself)!

Learning spaces

image via

One of Mr. Suzuki's great ideas was the foot chart.  A young student starts by standing on a mat that has their feet outlined in the correct positions for standing and playing the violin - genius!  Not only is it something personalized to them, but it also gives them a clear definition of their learning space.  Have you ever tried to teach your child in your own home and they kept collapsing on the couch or diving away from you for a toy?  Since I teach my WonderGirl in our living room - the same place where she wrestles with her brother, watches TV and builds castles with legos - the concept of the foot chart is essential.

I've modified it a tad to work with her diva nature...

This is a $9.99 piece of Ikea heaven.  When it's time for a lesson, the red carpet comes out.  For the first few lessons, she'd forget and try to wander off, but she knew exactly where to come back to when I reminded her.  It's her special place, our violin place, where she can focus despite the familiar surroundings.

she's kissing a llama.  obviously.

When it comes to piano, she always uses her purple chair.  It's not as exclusive, since she also eats every meal in it, but it's still something she insists on that makes a big difference.

How do you create a learning space in your home?

Things my 12 year-old self approves of

While visiting my hometown, I got the chance to spend a lot of time with one of my best friends who has just become a first time mom.  She's already way more organized than I've ever been as a parent - with tons of materials on raising bilingual children, and a changing table, among other things :)  She played Suzuki piano as a kid and plans on introducing piano to her wee one in a few years.  In the meantime, she is playing through her old sheet music so her baby can have personal concerts.

We talked about her Suzuki days, and she asked me about what I grew up playing.  The things that popped into my head were all things I enjoyed so much then that I actually still play today.  I played fair amount of music I wasn't a fan of (I didn't learn to love Bartok until I played it on the violin :) and this was music that a grouchy school-aged me adored, which I think is probably the most ringing endorsement ever.  Check them out!

Go Tiger Go! by Daniel Carr Glover is officially the coolest song I know how to play.  It's easy enough that I can play it (that means it's super easy) but it still rocks like a tough piece!  It's jazzy.. awesome.... I don't think I can do it justice.  Here's a random stranger playing it for you on youtube.

Modes and Moods by Robert Vandall - Okay, I've played a few of Mr. Vandall's pieces - my brothers played his duet Jubilation which is required to be performed whenever the two are in the same state (it's AWESOME) - and I've loved every one.  Mr. Vandall has a way of making the piano and the pianist sound their absolute best.  Each piece in Modes and Moods is based on one of the 7 modes, and they are all lovely.  My favorite - and the one I can still play (and sound far better than I am when I play it) is the one based on the lydian mode.  Lydian Nocturne is also available on its own and I hiiiiighly recommend it.

Lead Lines and Chord Changes by Ann Collins.  This book taught me more practical technique than any other piano book I have ever used.  I don't enjoy technical jargon and etudes, but Ms. Collins teaches how to play chord changes and be able to improvise your own in a way that I actually liked to play.  And now, I depend on the skills I gained from this book to be able to fake my way through any accompaniment that has guitar chords/chord changes included weekly.  I'm a right brained, can't follow directions kind of person, so when I say this book is good, I mean it's GOOD!

What did you play as a kid that you still love to play now?

Silent Melody

I'm not going to take credit for this idea, but I will take credit for implementing it vociferously.  The Faber book has a game it calls Silent Melody, inspired by none other than the big B himself.  Ludwig was known for composing music on long walks, silently moving his fingers as if he were playing it out on a piano, so the game it suggests is to close the keyboard and play a melody on the lid, saying the names of the notes or finger numbers as you go.  Since we use an electric keyboard, I just turn it off and WG plays the keys silently.

I do love that my child has a great ear, but sometimes it's nice to watch her fingers working without an ear to help her out.  I've done this also with violin students as well, with an added goal of being able to hear the notes if they press hard enough - and the "air bow," or practicing a bowing without touching the strings. Just file this away as a nifty idea to mix things up when you see your wee one's mind start to wander!

Guest Post: BEADS!

I'm thrilled to pieces to share this with you today!  My dear friend Becca from my ASU days was generous to write up a post on The Coolest Thing I Have Ever Seen A Violin Teacher Do For Motivation.  Really, I LOVE how tangible and cool it is!   Becca is a violinist extrordinare who has been sharing her awesome skills as a private and public teacher and has now expanded the student pool by 2 adorable boys. She told me about this technique a good 8 years ago at least, and it has stuck in my brain like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth.  I can't wait to try it with WonderGirl!  Thanks Becca!!!

When I first started violin, I was blessed with the best teacher EVER. Her name was Robin. If I had a good lesson, she would let me go outside and jump on the big trampoline while she would chat with my mom.  When they called me back inside I knew it was time for the best part… BEADS!!!  If I had mastered a song that week, or achieved a particular goal we had set, I got to pick—get this—one pony bead to put on the shoelace I kept in my violin case. Are you thoroughly impressed?  I don’t know what it was about getting to string a shiny plastic bead onto that rainbow-striped shoelace (yes, I picked it out myself), but it was BIG.

When I started teaching violin lessons I thought I’d try this out on my students.  Each week we decide together what they need to do to earn a bead the next week.  The goal could be mastering a new song, memorizing a page of music, demonstrating correct posture for the entire lesson, or even remembering to bring all of your music (you'd be surprised :).  The adaptability is the beauty of it.  I also offer an extra bead if they have an overall great lesson or impress me in some other way.  Extra beads have been earned for a story written about the song they’re playing, a drawing of their violin, making up a song and playing it, making up words to a song they’ve played and singing it...  It’s fun to see what they come up with.

Students turn their strand of beads into keychains, bracelets, etc.  A new favorite is tying a big loop on one end of the cord so you can hang it on the scroll and show off your beads while you play. Some kids can even look at their strand and tell what they did to earn each one.  Somehow, they love this simple reward.  Probably for the same reason I did as a child.  Each bead serves as a physical representation of what they have accomplished in an area of study where successes are often intangible. 

Have fun trying it out!

Ode to Joy, by my Sunshine!

She did it!! She practiced it about 20 times yesterday (I did not... obviously:) - I was a little nervous because she's used to playing on a keyboard and a real piano needs much more pressure to play the keys, but she didn't miss a beat. Woohoo!!

Post-vacay playing and mashmallows

This is a magical, magical bag.  You know how a child will eat all the marshmallows out of their Lucky Charms before they get to any of that "healthy" cereal?  This solves the problem for the kid in you!  A bag of nothing but cereal marshmallows!  I found these in Iowa at a wee Mennonite grocery store that separates bulk items.  Oh, the possibilities for rewards/bribery!!!

Take a few weeks ago.  One of my students had just come back from a very well-documented vacation to Disney World (at one point I had to stop checking their family's blog - it was torture!) and his mom was thinking we should skip the lesson because he hadn't had a chance to practice during the trip.  I completely agree with the no practicing part - by the way - I'm no Tiger Mother - and a vacation should be exactly that!

Anywho, instead of skipping, I thought it would be good to have a bit of a lesson anyway to slip him back into the piano by making sure we warmed up his good technique.  A week or so off the piano, and it's all about sagging wrists and flapping fingers.  We started at the beginning of the Alfred Technic book and played through all the old warm-ups and etudes.  It was good practice, but made even better because I grabbed my sack of these dehydrated marshmallows and put one of the back of each of his hands at the beginning of each song.  If he could make it through the whole piece without a marshmallow slipping, into his mouth it went.  I've never seen a 7 year old so alert and attentive in a lesson...

At the end, he was slightly keyed up (the marshmallows are small, and though they're mostly sugar, I'm pretty sure he didn't ingest close to the lethal amount) and ran downstairs to his mom to declare he'd just had the Best Lesson Ever.   And I agreed.  It was simple, it was all review, but it was also very productive and a great way to remind him of all those pesky technique things I'm always hounding him about.  I'm totally filing this away for my kid's post-vacation practice and lesson sessions.  Of course... this means I need to start planning some vacations...

P.S.  You don't have to find a Mennonite grocery to get some of these.  Search for "dehydrated marshmallows" and the internet won't let you down.  I found some for you here! 

How to teach your own kid how to play the piano - More lessons learned!

As I've mentioned before, the jump from playing music written on the staff has been a challenge for WonderGirl.  We've been flying by with the first Alfred Prep book but it was quite a leap.  I have a 7 year old student who is nearing the end of the book who hadn't the slightest hiccup while making the transition, but WG is still very much a 4 year old.  Both of us were wringing our hands, so I headed to the local music store to see if I could find a book that spent a little more time introducing the staff.  

Voila, enter the Faber My First Piano Adventures.  I'd looked at the series a few months ago, but the first book didn't seem quite WG's speed (it's delightful though).  The second book is all about introducing the staff, note by note (it comes with a CD that we haven't tried out yet - I'll give you info on that when we do).  It moves slowly, but it's chock full of games, theory and cute songs with catchy lyrics - which is exactly what WG needs right now.  She learned how to read English, but she'd been speaking it for about 2 years already - she's only been speaking "music" for a few months now, so I need to remember to be patient.

The bright illustrations and cute stories have WG excited, and I'm thrilled to pieces.  I plan on coming back to the Alfred book in a bit and using both, because she responded well to it too.  Plus I know once we get a firmer grasp on reading notes on the staff, it'll give her a big confidence boost to be able to rock the songs that had previously been difficult.

The lesson I've learned here is:  if your kid seems to hit a brick wall, sometimes you need to head to the music store and find a book that has a different path around the wall.  The end destination is the same place, and  will be more peaceful experience for both of you!  Who knew great method books could make a mom so giddy??

Practice time in Fort Rox!

Our afternoon schedule involved piano practice, making a fort and watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  We decided to save some time and combine the first two.

My forts/tents are usually a disappointment, but this one was awesome!  I took 2 music stands and put them on either side of the piano, then a microphone stand behind her chair.  One sheet clothes-pinned to all three, and then instead of using two more sheets, I used the sheer curtains we've just had to take down from her room (the Dude wouldn't stop playing in them - he broke the curtain rod!) and used clothespins to attach them to each side.  Voila!  We actually had some sun today, and it felt great to have it shining through her fort walls.

We're making the transition to reading music, and it can get poor WonderGirl in a tizzy lately.  So today, I decided to have her go through all of her old songs and review them so she could get her confidence back up.  Playing in her own special fort didn't hurt either :)