I know I don't blog enough. Shut. Up.

Mixed feelings about today.

Beau did well; we started the new Science book (whoot, whoot!), which was pretty exciting, and kept on with everything else. We might finish the math book some time this century. I kid, of course. It just feels like we have so far left to go and the “official” start of third grade is coming up so soon. I had wanted to be done with this book. I chalk it up to my own suckiness as a homeschooling parent. And we'll finish when we finish. We do two worksheets a day at present, which is a good pace for us. Beau seems challenged but not frustrated, so I'm going to call it success. We'll finish this book when we finish it and (the plan is) to plug through with math even when we're taking breaks from other things so that we finish the next one in plenty of time for fourth grade...and oh, God, fourth grade is looming in the distance. Ew.

Moving on quickly.

Usually Explode the Code is super fun for everyone involved.

Today...well, just blah. There were distractions. Kids were fighting in the background. We compromised and did about half of what we usually do. Both Xander and Bella struggled and there were many buzzing bees to be had.

But I am totally taking it. Daddy is home today...who can concentrate when Daddy is home? Also, it's totally Saturday. And nice outside. And the pool is beckoning.

So we are taking today and calling it a success. Education was had by all.

Now, let's go swimming.

chill out, mom.

i recently bought beau this AWESOME variety of books because the kid was literally begging for new books to read.

so this morning, seeing as how we have completely finished school this week, i thought i might gently nudge him into checking them out.

you guys.  he.  CRIED.

not big waterworks, but there were definitely tears welling in his eyes.

so i put them away.

and now i'm trying to sit here and tell myself that i will NOT make him read any of these books, no matter how good i know they are, no matter how much i know he'll like them once he gets started, no matter how much i am itching for him to discover chapter books and all the wonder therein

BECAUSE

i don't want him to hate reading.

it's like a mantra that i'm chanting over and over again inside my head.  i'm not going to force books on my kids.  i'm not going to force books on my kids.

i will purchase books that i think will be interesting to them, place them strategically around the house, and hope for the best.

all the while trying not to lose my mind.

it's raining.

this might not seem like such a big deal to you.  if it doesn't then you obviously don't live in my particular piece of southern alabama where we haven't seen rain for about TWO MONTHS.

okay, i'm exaggerating.  but it's been dry. 

however.  this past week alone, it's rained FIVE times.  and it.  is.  glorious.  i can't even begin to tell you the happiness. 

that feeling, you can only say what it is in french.

hallelujah, the end is in sight.

we are almost through week two of the summer "semester." 

i wasn't sure we'd make it through the first day. 

because it hasn't been easy.  we've had so much STUFF go down this week it's a miracle we got anything done at all.  so.  how have we done it, you ask? 

by avoiding worksheets like the plague, for one.  condensing the HECK out of lessons, for another.  doing lots of videos and even counting watching "despicable me" as part of our study on the seven wonders of the ancient world (you know, because they stole the pyramid at giza in the very beginning).

i'm also having considerable deja vu because we did the seven wonders last year with beau.  and now we're doing it again, but this time with xander.  the really fun bit is when he remembers pieces of it here and there out of the blue.

deja vu again with bella, since i did part of the kindergarten curriculum i'm using with beau when he was a kindergartener.  didn't use this curriculum for xander, so at least it isn't the third time through, although i know we'll be going through the seven wonders AGAIN next year with bella, so i need to go ahead and prepare myself.

at least i should know all of this stuff pretty well by the time i'm through, right?

did i once say i wanted more kids?

could i handle going through all of this a fourth time?

(oh, and if anyone gets the reference in the title, i'll bake you a cake.  i'm serious.)

stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.

y'all.  today has been a Day.

that's right, capital D.

but.  we managed to do school...on the computer, at least.  worksheets are on hold for a smidge.  honestly, we could go the rest of the summer without doing another worksheet and that would be fine with me.  we'd be taking a worksheet summer vacation.  i honestly don't care.  we are doing good to be doing "computer" school.

with the kinds of days we've been having.

we've had fevers and birthdays and a child who may or may not have strep throat.  oh yeah.  i said it.  i'm SERIOUSLY hoping that's not the case.  but if he isn't better by tomorrow, we're headed to the doctor (a place dreaded by all).

but victories.  we've had them.

flash cards are still a win!  xander recognized two, count 'em, TWO new letters today: Q and A.  i'm super proud.  and he's still kickin' rear and taking names with sight words.  bella, too.  it's like they can't be stopped.  it's freaking me out a little.

anyway.  that's pretty much the extent of it.  today we learned that thomas jefferson was a pretty radical guy.  he invented macaroni AND brought vanilla ice cream to the united states.  can i send him a christmas card?  we also learned that no human has ever been attacked by a healthy wolf in north america.  EVER, people.  that seriously (no irony here) eases my mind.  i feel safer walking by myself down the driveway (a practice i really should pick back up, since i have this new peace of mind).

also, we registered for everest again for next year.  funny how i don't legally have to register xander until next year, since he just turned six yesterday.  

anyway.   summary.  sight words = good.  worksheets = bad.  grade books = i have no idea what you're talking about.  driveway = safe.  everest = registered.  sanity = questionable.

the first week of summer semester...

...is officially over.

that is all.

ugh.

you know how when things go wrong, they really go wrong?

this week, doing school has been like pulling teeth.

wait, that's not a good analogy, since xander lost his first tooth this week without much ado. 

doing school has been like...forcing a five-year-old -- who really doesn't want to do flash cards -- to do flash cards.

it's friday.  usually we are on day four or day five of our planned lessons.  2/3 of us are on day three and 1/3 is on day two (xander took a sick day earlier this week).

it's just...been difficult this week.  i knew i should have been wary when everything last week went so smoothly, despite having to take a day off because i was babysitting for my sister and there was no way we were going to get to do school that day.  we still got everything done, with smiles on our faces and even *gasp!* time to spare.

but THINGS have happened this week.  we've been somewhere every single day this week.  we've had company.  we've had a library outing.  we had a visit from the tooth fairy.  everything that could have interfered with school, did.  tempers have flared (mostly mine).  worksheets have laid undone.  parts of lessons have been scrapped just because a kid didn't feel like doing them that day, and by golly, at this point, i am all for sprinting for the end of this week like there's no tomorrow.

i am NOT a big fan of early american history, and not because it isn't awesome and important and full of these great stories, but mostly because i'm not a big fan of history, and early american has always been my least favorite.  no explanation.  it just is.  maybe it was the clothes they wore.  i can't take you seriously when you're wearing a white wig, mr. president.  (note:  i'm kidding.  kind of.)  



and in science, we're learning about big cats.  which is interesting and all, but i'm just bouncing in my seat until we get to planets. 

i hate when we get bogged down in weeks when the subject matter isn't that exciting.  when this starts to happen, we generally start to skim.  and that's what i've been doing with john adams this week.  skimming the surface.  if beau cares about it enough, he'll ask for more, but for now, knowing john adams existed and that he did some pretty cool stuff for america is enough.  it isn't important how many children he had and what their names were.

in other news, sight words are WIN.  i've been working with both bella and xander with a few flash cards, and thanks to their cute little brain-sponges, it's really sinking in.  it's crazy.  i never taught beau sight words.  i never worked with him on phonics.  so all of this is new to me.  it's fun seeing bella remember that this card says, "away" and that one says, "and."  and even though xander is fighting me tooth and nail, he can't help but remember them, too, because his brain is conspiring against him (and is totally on my side, MUAHAHAHAHAHA) and he's remembering them anyway.

we are coming across a bit of a road block with letters.  ugh, letters.  the bane of my existence.  xander should know his letters by now.  if you want to be all boring and technical.  as it stands, he knows about six of the capital letters.  i don't know whether i should feel crappy as a parent or crappy as a teacher or just plain crappy.  he's getting them, though.  we're working on that.  he HATES it, but we're doing it. 

there is a part of me that really really hates making him do things he doesn't want to do.  it's a pretty big part.  because i started this thing with an unschooling mindset.  but the question is, do i stop doing it because it upsets him, or do i keep plugging away because...just because?  because i'm the mom and i should "make" him do school?  the same way i hate doing a gradebook but i do it because it's the "right" thing to do and it makes my husband feel better?  because i'm sure if i didn't at least attempt to teach xander his letters then hubby would be pretty upset.

ahh.  enough with the heavy.  things are looking up.  i hereby give us permission to skim the rest of the week's lessons and/or condense the final two/three days into one day tomorrow with no pressure or worries that we're missing something.  if it isn't interesting, it isn't interesting.  the end.

oh, no. she's blogging again.

i promise not to blog every day for the duration of the summer.  i don't really know what's gotten into me the past week that made me blog so much.  i think i've just had a lot to get out, and by golly, i've got a designated place to sort through my thoughts with the assumption that people actually care what i'm saying.  it's called a blog.

moving on.  today was the first day of doing school with all three kids. 

i should probably explain how we do things around here before i go into much more detail.  we have two sections to our school day.  the first is "computer school."  the website-that-shall-not-be-named is responsible for this.  it has tons of links to other websites, games, printables, online tests, videos, etc, all grouped together according to grade level and subject, which are then helpfully sorted into 36 lessons to be used over the course of the school year.  i go through each week and choose what we'll do every day (and we never do everything they have for us, there's just so much they have listed). 

up till this point, i've only been doing beau's grade level, and the other kids generally hang around and listen/watch videos/help with answering questions/etc.  sometimes i'll rephrase things so the littlest one can understand something better. 

"computer school" generally takes about half an hour to an hour, depending on what we're doing that day.  sometimes we just read.  sometimes we talk more than we read.  sometimes there are games.  sometimes there's a video.  it varies.

then there's worksheets.  everyone has been doing their own worksheets for almost a year now.  that's nothing new.  nothing much has changed except for the volume of worksheets.  worksheets usually take two to three hours, and i'm not even kidding.  this is including five-minute breaks every fifteen minutes. 

the point of me saying all of that was to explain what i meant when i say xander and bella have their own history and science now.  history and science fall under the category of "computer school."  so all that really means for me is about 30-45 more minutes in front of the computer during school time, and about two more hours in front of it on my own during the week to lesson plan.

more work for me, is what i'm saying.  but more work in the right place - lesson planning - and not in the wrong place - making our "school day" super-de-duper long. 

so it went smoothly this morning.  bella was upset we didn't do more school.  she actually cried. 

God help me.

again with the blogging!

we are finished with this week's lessons!!!  yay!! 

we started doing things a little differently this week, and it was a smidge of a rough transition for us, but we made it! 

too bad next week is going to bring new things as well.  like bella and xander having their own unique curriculum that i teach them SEPARATELY along with what i've already got planned for beau.

maybe i didn't think this homeschooling thing through properly.

sometimes, though, i look around at the work my kids have been doing, at the grades which i dutifully plug into the gradebook (that i still hate), at the fun we (sometimes) have when doing school, and i think to myself.  i'm actually doing this.  i'm one of those people. 

i'm a homeschool mom.

i already know this in my head, of course, but my head is usually about to explode or something and today i had one of those oh-my-goodness-the-kids-are-quietly-doing-worksheets-i-can-sneak-in-a-bit-of-mommy-reading-time moments and it sort of hit me. 

we homeschool.

and we're pretty good at it, thank you.

now.  please send me good thoughts next week.  i'm going to need it.

this might be harder than i thought.

so this morning i wake up with big ideas. 

i should always be wary when this happens.

i never learn.

i decided this morning that i was going to take a look at the first grade and kindergarten curriculum on the curriculum-website-that-shall-remain-nameless, just to see what we had waiting for us in the fall.  this was a mistake.

of course i decided it might be fun to go ahead and start a little early with everything, to give it sort of a trial-run during the summer. 

during the course of this, i added no less than FOUR subjects apiece for each of the children.  FOUR.  not only that, but each child has his or her own separate history and science curriculum, something i've never attempted before. 

it turns out that lesson planning for three individual children takes a lot more work and time than i'm used to spending.  probably because i'm used to being done in 1/3 of the time.  duh.  but i'm exhausted and i haven't even finished the lesson plans yet. 

what will next week look like?  why did i do this during the summer?  why am i asking you all of these questions?

odds are that i burn out halfway through next week and do some serious pruning of curriculum.

also, i've all but decided to just buy the books sonlight recommends and continue using the curriculum-website-that-shall-not-be-named for history and language arts.  something about it being what we're used to and actually pretty good and also free.  but new books are always a plus.  i'll just need to buy a new bookshelf.

yes, well.

if i could send a message back in time to myself at the end of november, i'd say a lot of things.  the most prevalent being WHY IN HECKFIRE ARE YOU TAKING THE ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER OFF?  THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD.

because i just realized that if we had worked through the month instead of going ahead and taking a nice long break from schoolwork, WE WOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE SUMMER VACATION RIGHT NOW.

ugh.

there are no words for the amount of difficult it is to reign my seven-year-old into sitting at a table and doing simple worksheets.  worksheets that a few short weeks ago, he happily sped through while i watched on, serenely sipping a cup of tea.  okay, so maybe not happily, but with little to no complaint.  i had no idea just how lucky i had it.

i know i'm being a bit overdramatic.  shut up.  it isn't as bad as i'm making it out to be, i'm sure.  but right now, i'm about to lose my mind.  i've already lost my temper.  multiple times.

not sure if it's the beautiful day, or the allure of better cartoons on TV all celebrating the completion of the school year, or the fact that our pool is sitting right there, beautiful and crystal clear and inviting.  maybe it's a combination of all three.  but we have been at it for THREE HOURS NOW, y'all.  worksheets generally take an hour per kid.  this is just beau we're dealing with here.

so you see my pain.

not to mention having to witness everyone's beautiful and fun memorial day updates on facebook while we're stuck here with nowhere to go and nothing to do while everyone else celebrates.  oh wait, we have something to do.  it's called school. 

again, shut up.  we celebrated memorial day yesterday with a family fun day in the pool and burgers and everything else you're supposed to celebrate with.  it was awesome.  i'm just jealous of everyone who's getting to do it again today.

i did do something fun today that we'll get to enjoy in a couple of weeks.  i ordered some books from amazon.  rachel will be so proud.

anyway.  i'm letting beau have a little break now.  he needs it, i need it.  then, after we've both collected ourselves, we're gonna head back in there and slay the beast.

and then we might go swimming. 

stars!

i totally should be cooking dinner right now.

my kids are now totally obsessed with stars.  no, not like the ones in the heavens.  i'm talking about the kind that look like this

and are drawn at the top of a worksheet, usually in marker or something, signifying a job well done. 

i'm not sure if i consider it a mistake or not, the first star i put on beau's worksheet yesterday afternoon.  he was so excited i was sure i had stumbled upon something AMAZING - if he were willing to work harder, focus a bit more, and do his very best to get a star, then surely this had to be the BEST THING EVER.

the kids sure thought so.

so now i have xander demanding stars on his worksheets.  okay, he deserved them today.  he. was. a. SUPERSTAR with worksheets today.  so i gave him stars on the ones he did the best on.  good, right?

not so, says my little brown boy.  he was unhappy that he didn't get stars on EVERY INCH OF HIS WORK; so unhappy that he slumped off, pouting, to go play the xbox, tears in his pretty eyes.  he almost guilted me into going back and plastering his worksheets with the things.  almost.

i decided he could do without bajillions of stars. 

but seriously.  i think it might be gold, this star thing.  either that, or i have just opened pandora's box.

blurb.

so.  i just did a really nerdy thing that will hopefully help me out A LOT over the next six months.

i made a spreadsheet with the week numbers at the top, starting right now and continuing until the end of the first grade (which will end sometime at the end of june, if all goes well).  in the first column, going down the left-hand side, i put the names of the subjects we go over, plus the ones i hope to add this semester.

and then.  i went through the long.  and tedious.  process of typing in the lessons we would cover over the course of that week.  THROUGH TWENTY FIVE WEEKS.  AND EIGHT SUBJECTS. 

it took a while.

but now i can look at my pretty spreadsheet and know exactly what we'll be covering in week [insert number here] in any given subject. 

it's pretty cool.

now all that i have to do is plan the day-to-day stuffs in each subject for each of those weeks....oh dear GOD now my head is spinning. 

and the best part? 

i get to do this every. year.  for the next TWELVE. YEARS.  always assuming i have no more children, of course.

uhm.

help?

gasp!

yes, i'm blogging.  weird, i know.

christmas is coming!  i'm UBER excited.  i still believe in santa claus.  most def. 

something exciting happened this evening that got me blogging. 

i got to start thinking about ordering new books for this semester!  i'll probably be able to order the week after next...and here are the books i'm going to be purchasing:

for beau:
1 - math-u-see: alpha
2 - theory time: primer level
3 - discipleland: level one
4 - note reading for very young piano students (he MIGHT be a SMIDGE too old for this one, but we're going to give it a shot, and after all, i've got other children...)

for xander:
1 - HWT: letters and numbers for me
2 - math-u-see: primer workbook

for bella:
1 - HWT: get set for school

i MAY start bella in the math-u-see primer book this semester, too, but i really don't know.  i'm thinking i'm just going to buy her a kindergarten workbook when she finishes the preschool one and see how that goes for a while.  as for xander, i'm going to get a supplemental kindergarten workbook for him to work through this spring.  he'll be starting first grade this summer, more than likely.

i also want to start beau with a spanish curriculum i found...and it won't hurt the others to be exposed to it.

i'm starting to get excited again.  for the past month and a half, we've all been kind of sick of school, and totally avoiding doing worksheets at all costs.  or maybe it's just me.  but i feel like this break has done us (read: me) tons of good and we'll be ready to start back after the new year.

yes, we're still alive.

well.  it's been almost a MONTH.  for that, i apologize.  i just haven't had the time.

lie. 

okay, so i've had the time.  i've just been using my precious downtime to play stupid, mindless games on facebook.  because that's what i NEEDED.  shut up.

updates! 

we are horribly behind.  but that's okay.  we were all kinds of crazy ahead to begin with.

i noticed today that everyone does INSANELY better if i work with them individually on their worksheets.  i don't know how i'm going to swing that, but i'm going to try to work with them one at a time on worksheets.  i feel like that portion of our day would be so much less stressful if we just changed that one little thing.

beau is doing great.  he's ace-ing all of his subjects, and he really does enjoy his work, even though getting him to actually sit down and do worksheets is a bit like pulling teeth.  and keeping his focus once he's there.  that's one of the reasons i want to start working with him one on one, because he seems to be able to focus much better when i'm sitting next to him.  he likes that individual time.  in other news, his handwriting is improving, slowly but surely.  we're working on spacing now between words, so his sentences look less like one big word and more like, well, sentences.

xander is making so much progress all of a sudden i want to do a little dance of joy every time i let him up from the table after finishing his worksheets.  his fine motor skills are improving like CRAZY, and he's recognizing numbers and doing so much better in his counting it's unreal.  i want to shout it from the rooftops!!  he zooms through his worksheets now.  i'm so proud of that kid.

bella.  oh, bella.  is there such a thing as the terrible fours?  i think bella invented them.  she. has become. a terror.  hitting, biting, yelling, scratching, fighting, arguing, asking the same question ten billion times even though she keeps getting the same answer.  suddenly, my helpful, friendly, polite little three year old has become...some sort of monster out of a horror film.  you think i'm exaggerating.  i'm not.  today, she has bitten, punched, slapped, pushed, pulled, tackled, and tripped both her brothers - in the last ten minutes.  but as much as she can dish out, she cannot take.  she can be reduced to a sobbing pile of flailing limbs with a single WORD or LOOK from anyone.  she will sit and "do school," but only for a few minutes at a time, and then she proceeds to try to distract everyone else as much as possible.

long story short, it's been a crazy month since i last posted. 

and now if you'll excuse me, i have to go stop bella from killing her brothers.  for the eleventh time this afternoon.

the truth about homeschooling.

the most annoying comment i get when people find out that we homeschool is, of course, the socialization comment.

but running a close second is this one:

"you have a lot more patience than i do! ha ha ha ha ha!"

don't get me wrong, ESPECIALLY if you have said this to me (or some other homeschooling mom or dad) at some point.  i don't find you annoying.

i find the assumption that i'm some sort of uber saint - whose kids never misbehave and are always perfect little angels sitting quietly at the dinner table, doing schoolwork - annoying.

especially on a day like today.

or a week like this week.

every day this week, we have gotten started with school at four thirty or later IN THE AFTERNOON.  this translates to mommy is pretty tired of kid nonsense already and kids are on some sort of crazy sugar high from afternoon snack (even if said snack contains no sugar).

it usually ends up with one or more kids screaming, "momma!  i'm done with my worksheet!  i need a new one!" while i'm trying to help another with his math worksheet.  or one daydreaming and singing when he should be practicing handwriting.  or bella crying because she doesn't have enough worksheets (and honestly, that kid could probably do worksheets all day long if i let her.  it's so weird).

anyway, my point is, i have no superhuman patience.  by golly, i wish i DID.  that would rock.

no, i end up fussing and losing my temper and getting frustrated and ending up the day by feeling like a total failure as a teacher/mom/whatever i am.

when people say, "oh, you must be like some saint or something!"  i always, always feel super guilty.

i feel like, hey, when i started this thing, i was excited.  and even when i just sit around lesson planning or thinking about what we're going to do next or just thinking about what it is i'm a part of, i get really excited because i get to watch my kids learn and develop a love for knowledge.

it's awesome.

so i feel really bad whenever i lose it.  when i get frustrated because beau isn't paying attention to his math worksheet, i forget that he's six and also a BOY and he would love nothing better than to run around the yard with a light saber in his hand ALL DAY LONG.   i could let him get up, run off some of that energy, and come back in a bit to finish that math worksheet.  because we can.

whenever i get annoyed with bella for begging for more worksheets, i could really just give her another worksheet to do instead of stressing about how the workbook she's in won't last until the end of the year if i give her more than two a day.  i can buy another workbook.  my schedule will survive.  meanwhile, instead of holding her back from learning even more, she might even zoom ahead and surprise me by skipping a grade or something.  who knows?

when xander is all, "no momma!  i'll do it by myself!  i don't want you to help me!" and i get upset because he gets the answer wrong...i could just help him fix it and be happy that he doesn't want me to hold the marker for him like he did in the beginning.

but i'm not perfect.  and sometimes i need to take a breather and remember these things.

the truth of the matter is i have regular-sized patience.

but i do have something that maybe some people don't have.

i have a super sized love for this homeschooling thing.

and sometimes, just sometimes, i get it right.

lesson planning.

(note: i wrote this yesterday afternoon.  it is getting posted this morning.  shut up.  i almost died last night.  but that is another blog entirely.)

***************************************************** 

so we finally got started on week eight today.

at four thirty in the afternoon.

but i digress.

the point is, we made it through the first day.  i'm not sure what exactly made today so flippin' hard, but yeah.  it was. like trying to brush a baby dinosaur's teeth.  while driving a hovercraft.  in a snowstorm.  while heavily sedated.

okay, so maybe i'm exaggerating.  a smidge.

anyway, after we got the boring things like ACTUAL LEARNING out of the way, mommy got to sit down and lesson plan.

this is all part of my new idea: finish lesson planning during the week so i won't have to do it on sunday afternoon, thus avoiding the upsetting of the hubby by my emotional absence. 

and while i was doing this, i realized two beautiful things.

would you like to know what they are?  of course you do.

first.  next week is week nine.  which, because i went to public school and all, is sort of a magical number when related to school.  it means the first quarter is over.  it means that we have officially made it 1/4 of the way through the year.

we made it!

except for not yet.

second.  i realized.  that i am.  almost two weeks ahead in lesson planning.

it made me all excited and giggly because usually i am all way behind and i have no idea what we're doing the next week until the night before.  it's AWESOME to be able to kind of see things all connected and feel pretty secure that no matter what else we're doing next week, school will be a part of it.

because the folders say so.

hello, my name is jessica.

and i am addicted to curriculum. 

specifically, searching out new subjects to add to an ever-growing pile.

subjects we already cover:  (in the order they were added)

1.  history.
2.  science.
3.  handwriting.
4.  literature.  (which sounds really awesome and advanced and such, but really it's just reading aloud every night from books that i select that i'd like for the kids to be exposed to.  so at the same time, it both is and is not as awesome as it sounds.)
5.  math.
6.  geography.
7.  spelling.

subjects i want to add:

1.  grammar.  (starting next week)
2.  language arts.  (also, starting next week.  this one is from the lesson-website-that-shall-not-be-named.)
3. spanish.
4.  music theory.
5.  piano lessons.
6.  Bible.
7.  art.
8.  creative writing.

see?  i have a problem. 

i could seek professional help, but as one of my best friends also has this exact. same. problem. (only i'm thinking hers is like three times as bad as mine), i'm assuming resistance is futile at this point.

okay, so. music.

i've been looking at different music books online for a while now.  it started as a desire of beau's to learn to play the piano.  so i thought, hey, that's easy!  just find a nice little primer piano book and we can get started!

not so easy.  there aren't a lot of piano books geared to kids under the age of eight. 

but.  i found one that i seriously love.  it uses animals for the notes; "e" for elephant, "c" for cat, "d" for dog, etc.  example:

cute, right?

the only problem is that this book is primarily a piano book.  i love that it teaches note names and positions on the keyboard, and the next book in the series teaches beginning timing.  but that's really as far as it goes.  i'm assuming that by that point, the child would be ready to move on to one of the piano books for eight-year-olds that you can find just about everywhere.

so i kept looking.  and i found theory time. 

MUAHAHAHAHA

i seriously love the look of these books.  and they're dead cheap, too; like nine bucks for a workbook.  they also go all the way from primer - grade 12. there are great worksheets included (which the other book does not have) that really cement the ideas and also look pretty fun. 

also, it isn't just piano.  there are sections on music history, different instruments, etc.

so my idea is to use them together

and so.  probably starting next semester, in addition to everything else, we will also be starting music theory.  this makes me incredibly happeh.

in which i have the attention span of an ADD ferret.

just a quick post before we head off to beau's LAST FOOTBALL PRACTICE OF THE SEASON THANK GOODNESS.

so.  first week back = success.  i know the week isn't over yet - according to my records, there's still one more day before i get to officially say that week seven is done - but i'm declaring it.  i hope i don't jinx anything.

which brings me to something i hadn't bargained on.  we are technically in week eight, since we took last week off.  that's going to confuse the heck out of me.  i'll just have to deal with it for now, since everything is labeled already and i don't want to have to go back and fix it now.  we're just counting actual weeks of schoolwork.  there.  that makes it all nice and tidy in my mind.

anyway, next week we are starting two new subjects.  i know.  shut up.  but we're adding a little at a time so as not to completely get overwhelmed...or at least that's what i'm telling myself.  the reality is that every couple of weeks i notice something that we aren't doing that i feel needs to be done, so i research a little and add a new subject. 

as i said before, shut up.

ooh, before i forget it, i need to send out an apology to a friend of mine who sometimes reads this blog.  darlin, i am so dreadfully sorry i never emailed you back.  i had this extremely long and well-thought-out email written and i had been adding to it for a couple of days when i had the chance (i don't have tons of time for some reason), so i left it up in my browser.  well.  i came home from school one day and the POWER HAD GONE OUT.  my beautiful, intelligent email to you?  gone.  poof.  so i said, oh i'll remember what i said and write it all out again later and i totally. haven't. done that. yet.  for that, i am sorry.

and now i must apologize to the rest of you for making you read all of that.  in my defense, it WAS homeschool-related, because we were having a lovely little chat about it.  so nyeh.

what was i talking about?  ah, new subjects.

grammar, for starters.  i've put together something of my own from worksheets i found at different places online and a few scope and sequence .pdf's i scrounged up from different sources.  basically, i know what needs to be learned in first grade grammar, and i'm about to get on that.  for all you haters.  *cough*rachel*cough*

also, language arts.  FINALLY.  i broke down and printed everything out from the lesson on the website that i use (which i won't mention because then i'll get a totally impersonal comment from them and it's unnecessary so neener neener) and put it all in my shiny green notebook.  i'm even going to *gasp* laminate a game and keep it for next. year.

i know what you're thinking.

who IS this lady?

i totally am thinking the same thing.  you aren't really that crazy.  i'm just getting uber organized and we all know who to thank for that one.  but i digress.

the point is that i'm stupidly excited for monday.  and it's like light years away.  but i'll live.