This week's State Department Round Up is hosted by Becky of "Small Bits" here:
Small bits: I never knew... State Department Round Up: "Blogregator"
Enjoy!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
School related goodness
School for the kids has been great in so many ways this year. Their teachers are amazing and the kids are highly motivated for class and homework. I’m not saying that they LOVE homework(!), they’re kids! But they’ve had a great attitude towards it this year. Get it done. Done right the first time. Then they’re free to play. Getting good marks is a goal. They have also been enjoying their specials and the teachers for those classes (art, PE, music, Arabic).
Their liking school, having fun, is important to us… they do like school and it shows. Their report cards were amazing, and today we went to their parent teacher conferences and had a great chat with both teachers. Brian’s teacher asked that her students be included in the conference as well, so Brian was part of our session with her. I liked that she asked him what he liked about his report card, and what he thought of some of her comments. He was also included in discussion of what to work on for future goals and improvement. I’m feeling mighty proud of our kiddos right now!
Other school fun to report on was a field trip Honor went on this week. Her class had the opportunity to visit the farm of a fellow student and get a little hands-on exposure to plants and animals, the subjects that they have been studying in class for their science lessons. I lucked out and got to tag along as chaperone. Actually, the chaperones did more than just tag along, we were delegated as group leaders and guided our assigned kids through their lessons.
The kids had many science-related activities to get through. Identifying plants and flowers. We had worksheets with photos and clues. It was a scavenger hunt, and once the plant or animal was found, there was often a question or two to answer about it. 
Another activity had them picking, washing, and cutting up fresh veggies for a salad to eat at lunch.
In addition to plants, they had to identify, count, and answer questions about animals. Ducks do NOT stay put in order to be counted, btw, and when chickens run in amongst the scurrying ducks, counting gets a little silly.
They also had a chance to sit and draw what they saw around the farm.
They had a chance to plant some seeds.
A highlight was feeding the goats and cows. Our group had this activity last and it was so hard to wait, but we finally had our turn. I love this photo of Honor and her friend, hay in hand, heading off to the animal pens, chatting all the way.
Details about the keyboard…
I’ve had a couple of questions on our new keyboard and realized I should share a little of how we came to make this choice.
I’m going to be lazy and copy/paste what I answered on facebook!
I'm not a pro! Never took lessons myself so I'm a newbie with these things. One thing I did know for sure is that I've seen kids who take lessons on typical keyboards, who aren't used to the feel of real piano keys, they have a hard time switching over if they try to play on a real piano. Piano keys are weighted and how the key is pressed and held matters a lot. So, I wanted a digital piano, rather than just a digital keyboard, but it had to be able to go through the APO system! Plus, I didn't want to invest in a top of the line model in case we decide, in a couple years, that we'd much rather rent a piano every few years and this one would end up taking up space in storage (We couldn't find rentals here! So counting on that at every post might be a bad idea!), and well, even though I didn’t want to spring for the top model, I really did not want a cheapo one that sounded like crap and wasn't inspiring to play on!
But what do I know??? I Googled… a lot…
Yamaha and Casio seemed to be some of the best digital pianos for home use. On Amazon, the reviews on the available Yamahas gave me the most positive impression.
This is the one we got: Yamaha YPG535 It sounds good, the key touch is slightly lighter than a piano, but only slightly, and the kids can't be lazy... they have to press the keys properly to make the proper sound. My only 'gripe' is, for playing, you have to turn the volume up (1/2 to 3/4 of the dial, approximately) for 'normal' piano volume, but when my daughter starts playing with the programmed music of the digital keyboard, the volume must be turned down or it's too loud! The digital display is big (for a keyboard) and tilted a little toward the player better than some I've seen. It came with a sustainer pedal, power supply, and (not shown in the Amazon ad) a music stand that fits on top. The bench I found separately Bench with storage. We just got it, so I can't give a great review, but it came very well packed, was easy to put together, and so far, we like the piano and the bench.
Here are other models that I really liked. I read in a couple of places though that while these were very nice, for home use the older models were just fine, another reason (besides worry about shipping something expensive through the mail!) to not go for the newest and shiniest.
If you can go to a music store and test drive a few models though, it would be worth it. Amazon might have better deals, maybe, but you'd get to see before buying. The ones we saw locally were insanely expensive. At least 1000JD ($1500) for the good models and 400JD to 500JD for small digital keyboards, and I didn't see anything I really wanted, so I was shopping 'blind' on the web. I'm happy with what we got though.
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