Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Jason passed Schaum Book One

Jillian and Jason have been real good sports about this whole moving thing. Consider: they're going to a new school. The pool is closed for the summer. We've pretty much packed away their toys. And they aren't as good at going outside and creating their own mischief as we were. They've been pretty bored, but considering the circumstances, they've done a pretty good job keeping themselves busy and out of trouble.

Jason, in particular, has been spending quite a lot of time on the piano. For those of you just joining us (where've you been, anyway?), Jillian has been teaching Jason everything she knows about piano and music. That's cute enough in and of itself. That they chose this without any prodding from us makes it doubly so. Here are some shots from a recent lesson.





She has assigned him pieces out of her Schaum Green Book, and has given or withheld stickers, as appropriate, depending on how he's progressed on the little songs. Stickers are apparently a fiendishly powerful motivator for 5 and 6 year-olds. Who knew? As we neared the end of the summer, Jillian and Jason reached the end of the book, which meant it came time for a recital and exam.

Jillian wrote her own exam. She took some questions from the Schaum book verbatim; took others and transmogrified them slightly; and simply concocted others right out of thin air. Here is the exam she wrote for Jason.


I'll translate for you.


Write down the answer. If it's right, put a "T". If it's wrong, put an "F".
This means "Right Hand".
This means "Left Hand".
This gets three (beats, I assume).
This gets two.


This is an 8th note.
This means to go 8 keys higher.

He got 5 out of 6, which is passing. Then he played a selection of songs from the book. (I'll post a clip once we get new batteries in Flip.) Jillian then created a certificate, certifying that Jason had passed the course.


Not bad. More than I can say, that's for certain.

2 comments:

AnthonyB said...

My nephew just recently turned 3 and still only hits the keys at random for the most part. He does sing along to songs he knows though.

As far as my Einaudi progress I just posted over to those forums. I've not really settled on a single song at this time, instead I'm messing around with a few.

Stella sure does stretch out that right hand pretty good. I was just messing around with the first page of that.

Michelle Himes said...

That is just awesome. Jillian must be a great little teacher.