Violin

Suzuki Concert

Allison was very excited to perform in her first concert – “up like a rocket” and the “A String Concerto.” She was on the cusp of playing Twinkle (on the E string), but had some difficulty sustaining a tricky rhythm (actually two rhythms of five). Needless to say, it was exciting to go on stage, perform and bow.

Steve taped the concert on the G10, so we have a movie of the performance.

Grandma Chang tailored the skirt, and we bought the little black shoes yesterday just for the performance. Hopefully, seeing other kids play will motivate Allison a bit — and she’ll get to wear her little concert outfit again.

Second Tooth Gone!

We got home tonight from a late work day and dinner. Patty informed us right away that the Tooth Fairy needed to visit. Katherine’s second lower middle tooth has been very wobbly for the last month or so. After bath, Katherine pushed the tooth back and forth with her tongue, and Patty pulled it right out! Steve and I decided that the second tooth going rate is $2 (as opposed to the $5 first tooth rate).

Katherine is on a tear to accumulate money. Yesterday she asked hopefully if she could earn extra money by helping with laundry. I informed her that laundry is part of base chores, but that I would talk to Dad about extra work around the house. We’re still brainstorming…I’m not sure what she’s saving her money for, but she sure seems motivated!

Allison Stories

Being around Allison is always very interesting. On Monday, coming home from her violin lesson, we stopped by Chevron to fill the hybrid with gas. As we pulled away from the station, Allison asked, “Where does the gas go?” Unfortunately, I didn’t have a very good answer right away, but it was thought provoking. She essentially was wondering why we keep filling the car with gas.

Earlier this week I walked by the fish tank and noticed a new addition. Allison had assumedly found some old goldfish stickers in her arts and crafts area. She picked the gold colored stickers and put them directly on the fish tank. Katherine walked by later and immediately started to peel them off. 🙂

Changes

It’s been a very eventful week for Katherine.

• She can see her first adult tooth emerging.
• She is in a new classroom at school. Today she took two books to school. Apparently, her new classroom has a “museum” in which kids can put one item from home. The museum is an aquarium! I expect that Katherine will be bringing all sorts of things to school this week. She chose to display “Tinkerbell’s Tea Party” today.
• She and Allison are finally in an extracurricular class together. They both attend rhythmic gymnastics after school one day a week, which they love!

Allison and I are getting closer to “Twinkle Twinkle.” She can now play all the Suzuki bow rhythms with decent form with open strings. She’s even put her left fingers on the fingerboard–although this is going to take a lot more practice. As part of the Suzuki method, Allison is supposed to go to monthly group lessons. We attended two weekends ago, and Allison was SO determined to play with the other kids (no matter what.) One of the exercises is called CopyCat, where a student plays a rhythm and the other kids follow suit. Well, when it was her turn to lead, I “helped” Allison played a rhythm. One of the little boys could tell that Allison wanted to do this herself, so he suggested that she try it…and she did. She even sat thru 45 minutes of advanced playing by older children. She is a very determined child.

It’s STILL Snowing

This week’s snow reminds me of my childhood and the tons of snow we used to get in Upstate NY.

This past Thursday we got 10″ of snow. On Friday, we maybe got another inch; Saturday brought another several inches. Today, its been dumping ALL day. The kids ventured outside to deliver cookies to the neighbors, only to fall over in the snow. Allison could barely walk without face-planting in the crunchy snow. Finally, I had to hold her hand to keep her upright. Katherine lasted a few minutes this afternoon playing outside with Steve.   

Fairy Fudge

Katherine has been toting around her Usbourne Fairy Cookbook for the last several months, ever since acquiring it at a Trilogy book fair. Today she whipped it out and informed me that we could make Fairy Fudge with the new colored marshmallows in the pantry. It sounded like a good idea, so we tried it.

In case you ever get a hankering, this recipe calls for marshmallows, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla and milk. My analogy is that it’s like making edible play-doh. We spilt sugar, sorted marshmallows and tried to make this fudge into the right consistency. It sat in the fridge for a couple of hours, and finally we were ready to roll (no pun intended).

Katherine made her two batches of fudge in no time flat. Allison, on the other hand, must have taken two to three times longer. Each piece of fudge was carefully cut with a cookie cutter and carefully laid out on wax paper. Katherine, looking over at Allison’s tray, kept asking, “Allison, can I have some of your dough?” or “Allison, can I help you with that?” Katherine was so intent on micro-managing her sister–showing her how to cut different colors of fudge to create flowers. They really enjoyed themselves.

The fudge is really something else–very, very sweet. In this case, it’s about the process or journey and not about the results!

Developmental Milestones

As you can imagine, we’ve been looking for activities to keep the kids busy. In Allison’s case, she’s been a puzzle maniac the last couple days. She’s now mastered Katherine’s 60 piece, ballerina puzzle. She’s dumped and put together puzzles numerous times each day.

Katherine is turning into a computer fiend. She’s made Christmas cards using MS Paint. She’s learning how to use MS Word, typing up her “Things to Do” for Christmas break. In the process, Steve’s taught her how to apply simple formating, print, undo, etc.  Katherine can now hunt/peck on the keyboard, and I even saw her hit Ctrl-Z to undo! Tonight I went to my computer and found Christmas gift tags filled out in a document. She and Steve had gone to Office Online, found a template and filled out the tags for various family members.

Katherine asked a very interesting question last night, “How do you and Mama type so fast without looking at the keyboard?” We explained the concept of touch typing, which she was fascinated by.

The kids are also enamored with a new game called “Slamwich” that Katherine received for her birthday. It basically involves putting down cards, with the intent of capturing all the cards. The girls love to scream, “Stop Thief” and slam their hands on the pile. Katherine can be pretty competitive and a sore 6-year-old loser. Allison just loves to participate, taking her cards out slowly and turning them over–but not giving up her red onion cards. 🙂

Violin Lessons

Allison is continuing to work on her violin lessons. We basically work on the bow hand, keeping it relaxed and tension-free. We’re also working on holding the violin properly under the chin, which takes a lot of work for a 3-year-old!

Allison can sort of play Mississippi Stop-Stop (4 16th notes + 2 8th notes). We’re working on string changes, which are kind of dicey, and a 8th + 2 16th note rhythm.

Where are your manners?

Allison and I had a very amusing conversation several days ago:

Mom: Allison, where are your manners?
Allison: Someone took them.

The next day:

Mom: Allison, I hope someone didn’t take your manners.
Allison: I lost my manners.

Katherine just chuckled throughout.

Mondays at the Playground

Because Katherine and Allison are in different classrooms, they don’t often see each other at school. Monday mornings are the exception, when their recesses overlap on the playground. According to all teachers, both girls are SO happy to see each other and play together until Katherine’s classroom lines up. That’s when Allison has started to tear up, “I miss Katherine…”

Katherine still walks her little sister to the classroom. It’s very sweet.

Developmental Milestones

Katherine finally got to 100 on her reading board. She was so proud of her accomplishment. Her reading these days includes Henry and Mudge, a couple short chapters at a time, and Sammy the Seal. Allison, by comparison, is trying so hard to read. One of her favorite activities is pulling out Katherine’s old beginner flash cards and sounding out letters. Surprisingly, she eked out some simple words last week by herself- JET, HAT and a few others. Katherine and I cheered her on.

Katherine is working hard on her math these days. To help her along, we took out her old bead board. She thinks its a hoot for me to hold up a flash card and see how many she can do in a certain amount of time. She also flips over a 5-minute sand timer. Between holding up flash cards and holding Allison back from our sand timer, it gets a little crazy during math time.

Katherine and Allison are progressing with their violin studies. Katherine is now working on a new rhythm – “ice cream <rest> cone” then changing strings. Allison is learning how to hold the bow like a baby bird and not squeeze the living daylights out of it. I told her tonight that IF she could relax her right hand, we would ask Katherine’s teacher to assess her for readiness. The imagery seemed to help quite a bit; she held it delicately with no pressure for a bit – until she started squeezing again. It really is amazing how little kids can learn correct bow technique at such a young age.