A tootin' and a twangin'

Son1's class played two pieces for the school's morning assembly today (fun!), and immediately afterward he handed his recorder to me and said, "Will you please take this home with you? We're done with the recorders for the year." Er, um, okay.

Fast forward to this evening. After some dejunking work by dear, dear husband (see earlier posts for hints as to the work), we listened to the torrential spring-storm downpour dump an inch or so of rain on everything outside including the junk at the curb... and the family made music. Son1 had his recorder out and was playing Ode to Joy. Son2 fetched his lap harp so dear husband could pluck along with Son1. Much tuning of lap harp to recorder ensued, and we found out that Son1 knows the names of the written notes -- A-B-C-D-E-F-G. I never really got that in my piano lessons, oops. Of course violinist dear husband was pretty happy.

Anyway, things developed into Son1 pulling out his recorder book from last year and playing several of the songs along with dear husband on lap harp, and Son2 deciding his role was conductor. I dug around and uncovered the recorder instruction book and music that I bought in college when I bought myself a wooden soprano recorder. Flipping through the music, I do believe I'm going to do a little tootling tomorrow sometime, and maybe with Son1. Son2 doesn't think he wants to play his lap harp, but was kind of interested in trying the recorder, or maybe learning a bit of how to play his tin whistle (I think?), a gift from Grandma and Grandpa that he has lately been tooting in time to some favorite recorded songs.

We left the lap harp, recorder, and all of the related music on the table. I suspect there will be some tootin' and twangin' before I get up tomorrow morning!

We also had a bit of civics study tonight, in the impromptu dinner table lesson dear husband gave to Son1 on the U.S. Constitution and its first 10 amendments. I have no idea how we got on the topic! I contributed by pulling out resources; the Constitution and lots of other interesting documents are reprinted in part or in full in a book I have, entitled The Democracy Reader, edited by Diane Ravitch. I acquired that book just before grad school. It was interesting to read through the first 12 or so amendments. I think Son1 wasn't sure what to make of dear husband and me at that point...