Piano

Last night DH got out a book that he bought for DS1. It has a 23 note keyboard (14 white, 9 black) and each page has a song with the notes color and number coded to the keys. They played several songs together with DS1 playing and DH singing the words. The rhythm wasn't anywhere close to right, but at this point that doesn't matter. DS1 liked the book and keyboard so much that he not only played it in the car, but took it into daycare to share with his friends.

This article, No Greater Joy: Homeschool Kid - When the Music Starts makes me wish we still had our old upright piano. We do have an almost full-size electronic keyboard that the boys have seen and played with, but a real piano would be nice, too.

Patterns

In our church's nursery, two small coat racks with colored baskets were recently mounted on opposite walls. The baskets are red, blue, yellow and green. Yesterday, I was watching the kids because our regular caregiver was absent. From across the room, I saw DS1 standing by one rack. He looked across the room at the other rack, then back at the close one, then at the far one again. Then he rearranged the baskets so the colors matched from north to south. They had been the same from left to right but he intentionally made them match from one end of the room to the other. I was very intrigued and impressed.

Not long after that, DS2, who had counted them several times (1, 2, 3, 4, walk across the room to the other rack, 5, 6, 7, 8) put them back in the left to right sequence as the rack on the opposite wall. I'm not sure which impressed me more.

Ordinal Numbers, Calendar Knowledge, and Night Adventures

Yesterday was quite a day for me witnessing things that DS1 knows. We have a large wall calendar hanging in the bathroom (because that's where we will see it every morning and every night). As I was sitting, and he was standing facing the calendar, he said, "Tomorrow is March third." Impressed, I said, "Yes, it is." Then he proceeded to tell me that March fourth comes next, then March fifth. He asked what was after that, so I told him "sixth" and "seventh". Then he observed that March has 31 days, followed by "Just like January." Whoa!

At dinner, DS1 pointed out the chimney on the house illustrated on his placement and stated that it was different than our house. I told him that we did have a chimney, and that after we all finished eating and cleaning up we could go look at it. Then I said that since it was dark we would need to wait until morning. He suggested that we use the "new big flashlight." So after dinner we got our jackets, I pointed out the fireplace in the living room (that is nonfunctional and well hidden by the couch and storage), and we went exploring outside. We looked at trees (the "acorn tree" and the pine tree) and the ground, and we determined that although the flashlight doesn't shine clear up to the moon it does shine to the houses across the street. Then he found the chimney on top of the roof.

While we were exploring, our neighbor came out; she and I chatted some, then she invited us in to see her living room in the process of being remodeled. When we got inside, DS1 took his jacket off and politely asked when she hangs up her coat. She said she just tosses it on the couch, so that what he did, too! LOL! He looked around her living room while she and I chatted some more, then he asked me if he could go upstairs. I said, "no", that we needed to go home so Daddy wouldn't worry, but our neighbor said, "sure", so I relented and off he went to look for the cat. He came back down just a minute or two later, put on his coat the first time I asked, then we both said good-bye, went back outside, shown the flashlight on the chimney then the car, then went into the house. It was awesome!