Extra-curricular activities in homeschooling

Gundega, our music/voice and piano teacher, was a huge part of our weekly homeschooling routine.  She came and taught the girls voice and after some time, the girls wanted to learn how to accompany themselves on the piano.  So she taught them the chords to each song.  It was fun to hear them at the piano singing their hearts out!  Gundega taught in a way that my girls felt uninhibited in using their singing voice to express themselves.  I was always amazed at how little insecurity they felt as they sang for all in the house to hear.  They have beautiful voices and I'm glad that Gundega helped them to hear the beauty in their own sounds.

I also hired Gundega to teach Thomas on piano.  He did Skype lessons for 3 years with Ms. Mecham and then he took a break for 6 months or so before he wanted to start up again.  It was convenient just to have Gundega teach since she was already in our home (although we miss Ms. Mecham!).  It was nice to have Gundega there to encourage his creativity and piano discipline again for a handful of months at least.

We started tennis lessons over summer 2018 for all the kids, so we just continued them for the girls for part of their P.E. in homeschooling.  This was the kids' very first day of lessons in the summer where they experienced the 30 minute warm up of running and stretching followed by 1.5 hour lesson.

So during homeschooling, the girls had weekly lessons.  We had a few months of frustrating coaching techniques (Eastern Europeans coach differently than Americans) where I picked up girls that were upset with how frustrated and impatient their coaches acted with them.  The coaches seemed to resort to shaming as a "motivator" for the girls to do better, but after I spoke with Janis, the head coach, and explained that the girls need positive reinforcement instead of shaming, things got better.  Janis talked with their usual weekly coach and the girls could tell he was really trying to be more positive.  Sometimes the coaches traded off between two men and Victoria.  The girls liked Victoria.  She seemed to understand the girls better and what would motivate them.  :)  Overall it was a positive experience and a great two hour physical activity that they especially needed in the winter when they were stuck inside!

Here they are a year later on the last day of their lessons!  It's wonderful to see their improvement!

Lesson with Victoria for their last day. :)