Eclectic Parent

We went to our second symphony with the kids today. The Phoenix Symphony has short, inexpensive concerts for schools and we were really excited to find out that they’d let homeschool families attend. The first concert was a little disappointing. They tried way too hard - cute little puppets, etc that didn’t actually add to anything. This time the music was much better - lively, fun and some of it familiar - and the conductor much more personable.

Hanukkah Festival Overture, by Lucas Richman
Sleigh Ride, by Leroy Anderson
Frosty the Snowman performed by a bell chorus
Carol of the Bells, arranged by Robert Wendel with symphony and bell chorus
Waltz of the Flowers (Nutcracker), by Tchaikovsky
Joyous Noel, by Steven Amundson

After the symphony we went to lunch and talked about the music. The kids really liked Sleigh Ride because you could hear the horse’s bells, the clomping feet, the whip cracking. D said he listened to it with his eyes shut so he could picture what was going on.

The kids got coloring sheets at the restaurant. One of the animals on it was a shark. Having colored the top half blue, D wanted to know what to color the bottom half. Kind of hard when you only have red, green and yellow as your alternatives. C suggested gray - not that we had it, but it’s what he thought the bottom of a shark should be. So that led to a discussion on counter-shading. Looking from above versus looking from below, how counter-shading is a type of camouflage, why predators might want camouflage to sneak up on animals. See, anything can lead to interesting conversation.

We ended up talking about the trip to Mexico. It’s coming up quickly. I had planned on spending months studying Spanish with the kids but we haven’t started yet. So I was telling the kids that, although three weeks wasn’t much, we should start learning some Spanish. B asked if English was what they spoke in Ireland. Seriously. This is the kid that just turned 3. Then she said she wanted to learn English; had to point out that that is what she already speaks. Funny though.