Ethan's Piano Reward

Ethan's piano teacher uses the "Reading Keyboard Music" system to teach notes. This has students learn note positions instead of note names. Ethan has been doing so well with it but it has been hard for him because he has to sit down and say the positions when he practices (bottom line, top line, middle space, etc.) and he feels silly. At the end of the book there is a 1 minute test that kids have to work on and pass. They also have to memorize three songs, be able to do 6 exercises without stopping and take a written test. When they do all this, they earn a candy bar from their teacher. Ethan didn't like the choices of candy bar so he wasn't motivated, but I made a deal with him to switch his earned candy bar in for a King Sized Milky Way bar. It was a deal.

Ethan has been working on it and had passed off everything but the 1 minute test. Last week he tried to pass it off and missed it by about 10 seconds so that was the only thing we practiced this week.

I went with him to his lesson and he was so nervous. He told his teacher that, at home when we practiced, he did it with 20 seconds to spare so he was ready to go. She had him warm up with his scales and chords and then let him do it. He did great!! When he finished she said, "Ethan, you have 15 seconds to spare." He slumped and looked like he was deflated. She said, "Do you realize what that means?" He shook his head. He had misunderstood and thought he had gone OVER by 15 seconds and missed out. He looked pretty upset. Then she said, "Ethan, I need you to stand up, put your arms in the air and do a happy dance because you made it!! You had 15 seconds left on the timer when you finished. Great job!" I still don't think it really set it because he was so calm about it, but when she gave him his candy bar he was smiling from ear to ear! I was so happy for him.

We promptly went to Albertsons and bought a King Sized Milky Way bar for him to trade me and then we dropped the other candy bar by Bryan's office. On the way home Ethan ate his candy bar (King Sized bars now have two little bars in them instead of one huge one). He took out the first bar, ate a few bites and then shoved the rest in his mouth and about choked getting it all down since it was so big in his mouth. But he was loving life.

GREAT JOB ETHAN!!



This was AFTER he had eaten most of the bar he shoved in his mouth!