It was worth it

Some days are horrible and I just want to send my kids on that bright yellow bus and have a few hours of peace and quiet.  Some days are just ordinary and I can handle it.  Yesterday was one of the good days, when I remember why I homeschool and we laugh and enjoy ourselves.

For those who don't know, I started playing the flute at age eight, piano at ten, did a year of french horn in school, and was in chorus from fourth grade all the way through high school.  I love music.  I have not done the greatest job of passing that love on to my kids.  We've tried doing piano lessons and learning how to read music, but my kids were never terribly interested.

Out of desperation, I got Beethoven's Wig, a CD of classical music.  The first time you hear the piece, they've added lyrics.  The next time, it's just the piece of music.  My kids love it!  However, I realized the other day that the kids couldn't identify instruments by ear.  So I hunted down a website where they could learn more about instruments.  It's called The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by Benjamin Britten.

My kids - all four of them - loved it and sat through the whole presentation and game, which was probably an hour or so. Then, we pulled out all of our instruments.  I have a violin, clarinet, flute, and trumpet.  I always hoped to have a Music Room where my children would play.  They all tried all of them and we're going to start lessons on the instruments they liked best!

It was so cool to see which instruments the boys gravitated to (Peter to the clarinet, Jonathan to the violin), and hysterical to hear the girls get the best sound out of the trumpet!!