Week at a Glance: March 8-14

Scott just played his annual BYU faculty concert lastnight and it was fabulous!  He played Copland's Piano Sonata #1 accompanied by over 200 Depression era photos, a fascinating piece by Stephen Scott for Bowed Piano Ensemble---the music was hauntingly beautiful and the ensemble was fun to watch since they looked like they were performing surgery on the piano.  Then the Schumann Carnival which was also really well done.  Scott got a ton of press coverage for this concert.  A few newspaper articles and radio interviews.  Could I somehow link the podcast of his radio interview onto this blog?  What a great thought.  I'll look into it....

Now his schedule will free up a little so that's great, too!  :)

The big kid news of the week is that Ella cut her hair for Locks of Love.  She's been planning this for a few months now and was nervous/excited to actually get it done.  I was more on the sad side and kept saying "are you SURE you want to cut it all????" but she was adamant....and, afterall, it IS her hair!  Here are the photos I took before it was done:

The short is sort of Kit Kittredge-like and she LOVES it.  We bought a bunch of new headbands and she is just in heaven.

Here are the kids playing with their friends in the yard---the girls are at work on an elaborate fairy house in our plum tree and the boys spent quite some time in the sandbox making tunnels and forts for their playmobil men.

The week was full of daily school, music lessons and violin class and orchestra, friendship clubs (we hosted both boys clubs for the 4-6 year olds and girls club for the 7-9 year olds in our homeschool group this week---phew!).  We visited a bigger homeschool co-op in Provo on Thursday to check it out for the Fall.  The kids sat in on Earth Science classes, Word Play, Art and Spanish.  Friday morning was our last day of the current co-op session with our own little homeschool group and the kids were excited to display the posters that they'd made for Utah's Arbor Day contest.  Ella's poster got 1st place and will go on to the State competition and Asher and Ethan were both thrilled to get honorable mention which included a ribbon to take home. 

Saturday morning was full of ASTA Festival stuff.  ASTA=American String Teachers' Association and the festival is an annual one that gives the kids performance opportunities.  Ella played a solo audition and with a violin quartet which has been in the works since the summertime.  Here's a video of her quartet playing the Telemann Concerto in D for Four Violins (to follow....can't figure out how to load it).

Ella News:

Studying Pollination, Michelangelo, reading Swallows and Amazons, multipication, Marco Polo, reading Fablehaven and Percy Jackson, we're making flower barrettes in girls club next week, gets to start hard-shoe in Irish Dance soon, obsessed with headbands.

Asher News:

Added to his marble collection this week, obsessed with legos, likes to hunt for wasps nests, loves to make habitats for creatures he finds (most recent:  praying mantis eggs), loves I Spy books.

Ethan News:

Pretends that his hands and fingers are two spiders, insists that he remove one shoe while he goes potty, sings a lot, is obsessed with the McDuff books. 

Read Alouds:

Still working on The Magician's Nephew (to all)

A Little Princess (to Ella)

Composer Study:

Ralph Vaughn-Williams

Poetry Study:

Sara Teasdale

Artist Study:

Raphael

Folksongs:

Land of the Silver Birch

I Love the Mountains