Take Courage

Well, I've been working hard, and I'm almost ready for school!

I finished our triangle flashcards for multiplication and division. I ended up going to WALMART and buying a $24 Scotch brand laminating machine and 2 packages of laminating pouches. Saved us a ton of time, and managed to laminate all the flashcards in 30 minutes. I tried using the contact paper, but it drives me crazy when it wrinkles. I figure the laminating machine saved my sanity, and it will be used a bunch in the future. Well worth it.

I've also got everything entered into Home School Tracker Plus (HST+) except our poetry class. That was time consuming. Exploring Countries and Cultures has lots of little details. I got really specific for most of the topics, except geography (go figure!). I just made a generic template for that. But, I really made lesson plan items for everything.

For poetry, I've typed up the 9 poems in the second half of Primary Language Lessons. Abeka has a real nice poetry lesson plan. I'm going to try to follow it. I think all I need to do is take last years poetry course and re-use it, changing the poem names to the new ones. I don't know how easy that will be, but I'll certainly give it a try.

Rabbit is continuing on in MUS Beta. The next three lessons are just extensions of borrowing. I said she could just do one review page, and if she did well, take the quiz the next day. We'll be doing quiz 26 tomorrow. We'll probably have about 3 weeks of Beta for the beginning of this year before going onto Gamma. I'm so glad she caught on to borrowing. Hardest thing for her to remember is that if the number on top is not bigger than the bottom one, you have to borrow. She's getting it. She did all the thousand subtraction without any help. Way to go, Rabbit!

This summer, I bought My Father's World's preschool package at our convention. To kind of ease back into school, we've been doing a little preschool each day. I read to the kids, and then I get out a couple of the new toys, and we try some things with them. They love the new toys. It has been good. Rabbit participates, too.

I have to admit I've been stressing a bit about our schedule for this coming year. Exploring Countries and Cultures seems kind of parent intensive. Not much to just give to Rabbit and say, "Go do these pages," so I can have preschool with the boys. But, God gave me some thoughts. The first is, I don't have to finish school by noon each day. In fact, it is highly likely we won't. Eventually, there will be a season when we do finish by noon, but not for a while. The second is, Pooh and Tigger will join in on some of the other subjects, so they'll be getting school then, too. The third is, Rabbit can join in on the preschool time as long as I don't let her dominate. Some of it will be way too easy for her, but some of it will be good review that will help her. I don't think school is going to drag on until dinner every day, like it did many days last year. So, I'm trying to let my heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord;

Be strong, and let your heart take courage;

Yes, wait for the Lord. -Psalm 27:14