July 2, 2009

Music Lessons & Getting It All In

Recently I have been asked how I fit it all in. First of all, let me say that I purposely choose programs that do not take all day to complete. I follow the Charlotte Mason principles of short, effective lessons. I also like to combine my children. As of right now, because of their ages my oldest two are combined and my youngest two daughters are combined for everything except Language Arts & Math. Last year I schooled my youngest two in the morning and my oldest two in the afternoon which worked out really well for us. I had my oldest two doing chores and then free time in the morning and then switched after lunch. My son also took his nap in the afternoon so he didn't  need a babysitter. For piano, my oldest daughter takes lessons 1x a week. She is going on 3 years of playing now and she has begun teaching my younger daughter the basics at home. She is a naturally very good teacher so this works out well. If any of my other daughters show a continued interest and talent in playing the piano, we will get them additional lessons in the future. For violin, we bought this program : The Violin Book My oldest daughter is going to be the primary teacher with this program as well. It is designed to be self-taught but I wanted some sort of teacher. My oldest daughter has taken violin lessons in the past, plus she already knows a lot of musical theory and can read music well. For us, not having to haul the children to all sorts of places for lessons has saved us a lot of time and money. This arrangement has worked very well and we are very pleased with it. If in the future, any of our children shows a great deal of musical talent, we will probably look for a teacher to give them even further training. God Bless, Michelle

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