Ta da...

I didn't really want to call attention to it, for fear of jinxing things, but we started "school" (ie. the learning that takes place when Mom takes the wheel for a while) back up again this week. It's going quite smoothly! I have to say that N. has really matured in the past year, and that's helping tremendously. She's got a much better attitude, showing a greater willingness to try things that initially seem too challenging, and an ability to focus on tasks for a longer period of time. I might get a good couple of years out of her before the teen years hit! ;P

When I was starting to brainstorm the coming school year, I had a couple of ideas in mind for a long-term unit study N. might be interested in. The one she settled on is Beautiful Feet's History of the Horse, which I actually purchased used a couple of years ago when she was at the height of her horsey fanaticism. At the time it just wasn't a good fit for us, but two years later it seems about right. We're tweaking some of the lessons to work for our own family, but otherwise I'm following it fairly closely. Three days/week is recommended, but I'm planning more on doing 1 1/2 lessons twice/week.

We also just started using Math-U-See. We've spent the past couple of days becoming familiar with the MUS blocks, having N. write out numbers in expanded notation and then "building" the number. She likes using the manipulatives, but I notice she's not very careful in her work. I kept reminding her to check what she was doing, making sure she counted out the correct number of 100s, etc. Highly distractable, this one! My tentative plan is to use MUS to review back through all the basic math facts until she has them down cold, and then continue moving forward with Singapore (my one tried-and-true friend all the way through our homeschooling).

So right now we are reading two books that I've never before read: Brian Jacques' Redwall and Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind. The writing in each of them is really phenomenal. N and I are enjoying pointing out wording in each of the stories that we find to be fantastically descriptive. Apparently we're literature nerds or something, but I'll read a passage and look over the book at her, and we'll both have these goofy grins on our faces that say "Wow! Was that not the most amazing thing you've ever read?!!" The boy child, while a fan of the Redwall movie (which we checked out from the library a couple of weeks ago, with the intent that it would give him the background so he might follow along), is irritated by the lack of illustrations present in the book. I'm lucky if he sticks around for a chapter, though tonight he stuck it out for almost two. Who can resist the evil Cluny the Scourge?

And lastly, if you've ever had a senior kitty in your life, you must read the story The Grannyman, by Judy Schachner. This author also writes all the Skippyjon Jones books, as well. If you haven't stumbled upon her yet, you should really check these kitty books out.