Resources for Year 1 Classical Education

My goal has always been to follow a Clasical Model of education. During the past six years of homeschooling I have gotten off the path but this year decided it was time to go back to the basics and how I believe I should school my children.

In classical education you study using a chronological view of history so year one is the time period from Creation to A.D. 400 or the time period of the Ancients.

In putting together resources to use this year I stumbled across this site with a wonderful list of resources (some free). Ancient History Lessons. She even has a few free ebooks that aren't already in my library!

Be sure and check out the link for "Historical Hats and Headgear" What child (boys especially) wouldn't like to make a Roman Praetorian Guard hat?

Free Books part 2

This is the first year we have ereaders in the house. As I was searching for books for Kindle, I began to find some of the books we wanted to use with our curriculum for free. It actually felt kind of random until I started doing some more searching and realized that there is a way to increase the likelihood of finding free books.

The best known site for free public domain children's books is The Baldwin Project. You can use this site to read the books on your computer or print them out. You can search by title, author, or genre.

The other two sites I use for free books is Google books and Amazon Kindle. I have both of these apps loaded on my iPad. You can download their apps for different devices (android, iPod, iPad, and computer). For both of these sites it is pretty important that you use a generic search. Also just because a book isn't available on one site doesn't mean it won't be available on the other.

If you search for Famous Men of the Middle Ages you will find it on Kindle for either $2.99 or $.99 but if you search on Google books it is available for free.

On Amazon Kindle I have had the most luck not putting the word "free" in my search. In google it doesn't seem to affect your search and usually if you use the word free at the end of the keyword search (Famous Men of the Middle Ages free) the first book that comes up (if it is available) will be the free version. So when you use Kindle don't use free, but use free when you search on Google books.

Here is a link to Amazon's Free eBook List.

I have not searched for books for the Nook but one tip I read said to type in the subject you are searching for plus 0.00...i.e. King Arthur 0.00.

Here is one last link for free ebooks Happy Hearts Homeschooling Library. This is a new blog that I found from a link on WTM. So far I love what I am finding. She has a diverse list of books and has a great category system linked. On her side bar she has a list of places you can find free ebooks and also tips for printing and searching her site.

One thing to remember is that many of these books are not revised editions. Some of the things in them will not be politically correct and will reflect the cultures and mores from the time they were written. So be aware of this and be prepared to address any of these issues that arise from the reading.

Most of the classics will be available in some form for free (Charlotte Bronte, Stevenson, Dickens, etc). Also some "classic" textbooks will be available. I have a long list of language arts curriculum available on Google books.

The authors John Henry Haaran, G.A Henty, Samual B. Harding, and H.E. Guerber (all historians) have numerous books available and I feel like you could create a solid base for your historical studies using these authors. I don't believe that you could use these books alone. You need some more modern works.  These books are not full of color photographs so they may not be as "entertaining". My plan is to use these along side other more current works so that the program is more well rounded. I love the Usborne books for their photos and the way they bring history to life. I also love the narratives in Story of the World for younger children. I believe that adding these books in gives you a depth that isn't found in current spine/core/textbooks.

Free books

I am going to write a couple of posts on free books. This time of year there are lots of homeschooling moms looking for curriculum and books for the next year. If you are like us and a house of big readers saving money on books is a very good thing.

One of my favorite ways to get free books is to use Paperbackswap.

I have been a member there since 2007. In that time I have received 102 books. If I average the cost of those books to about $5 each, then I have saved over $510 using PBS. The reality is probably more than that since many of the books I have received sell for more than $5 each. Out of the last five books that we have received, one of them is out of print, one is a field guide that sales for over $13 on Amazon and the other three both cost over $8 each.

That is my long way of saying PBS is worth using. So if you don't have an account, go sign up for one now. When you sign up for an account you have a couple of different ways you can earn credits. You can list books to swap (easiest way) and you earn credits for each book that you send out. You can go to their forums and there will be people willing to sell credits for $2.50-$3.00 each. Or you can buy credits directly from PBS for $3.85. I usually try to send out books so that I always have a few credits in my account. There have been a few times that I have bought credits from both other users and PBS directly.

When you send out a book you do have to pay the postage on the book. When you request a book you do not have to pay postage and instead trade in a credit for each book.

Once you sign up for an account and you have listed books. The next step is to set up a wishlist of books that you are interested in. Currently I have 174 books on my list since  I am collecting books for next year. You can have as many books on your list as you choose. When you start searching for books there are some tips that will help you find as many books as possible.

The first thing I do is use the keyword search for the specific title and see if the book is available. If it is available I will click on the title and add it to my wishlist. On your wishlist, if the book is available in more than one version, then you can click on the link (expand wishlist) and it will add other copies to your wishlist. This helps if someone lists the same book in a different version (hardback vs paperback).

If you type in a book and click on the link you can see some helpful information about the book. You can see if they have any other versions available. You can also see how many members are waiting on the book. If you are waiting on a book that has a long waitlist (one of mine I am 347 in line for) then you can also refine the way you search for a book and you might find a different version available.

This information comes for Cindy on TOG year 2 yahoo group. When you are searching be sure and search for generic information in the keyword search box. I was looking for the Usborne Internet Link of the Medieval World by Jane Bingham. When I searched for Medieval World in the keyword search it brought up a version of the book I was looking for with a different ISBN but the same author. I am fairly certain this is the book I want so I ordered it. Also be aware that sometimes when inputting a book there may be misspellings in the name so a generic keyword search may bring up the book that you are looking for.

K 4 plans

We have a little guy that wants to "do" school so bad that I am planning a K4 year for him this year.

I have found some amazing resources for this age group and even a little older.

For Bible I think we are going to do this study as a family...Young Peacemakers. We will also be reviewing our lessons from Little Contenders of the Faith. Both J and W participated this past year and they memorized Ephesians 6:10-18. We will review that and use these printables for practice and review. Armor of God

For math we will use Math U See Primer.

I will also use some of the worksheets from Confessions of Homeschooler and especially the You Can Read program from Carissa's blog. If you are interested in this she is offering an ad free zone for $5 until she completes the program and has all the printable loaded on her blog. This is a great deal! You can download the printables for free but it is worth it to have the ad free zone. Let's be honest don't most of us spend more than $5 a week on soft drinks and coffee?! Carissa uses her blog to sport their mission work so this goes to a great cause.

There are tons of Alphabet resources here and I know we are going to use the playdough mats along with the do a dot/magnet pages.

Because the older boys are studying astronomy I printed out Astronaut Pack and also Solar System Pack to use with Will. All of the boys have enjoyed the printables and games from these sites so I know they will love these also.

The boys will be studying Medieval history this year so I am adding this Knight pack.

Plans for next school year

I am trying to make plans for next school year. For the older boys I am pretty set on what we are going to be using.

TOG is our main source for history, geography, timeline work, literature, worldview, arts and activities. This is our second year using TOG and while there are some challenges overall we enjoy this program. This year we will doing year 2 and studying the middle ages. I have been choosing our books and collecting them from various resources like PBS, google books (love free ebooks) and then buying some from Rainbow Resource and Amazon.

I am editing this because we will not be using TOG this year. History is going to be an eceletic mix of things with Story of the World as our spine. I am planning to use the map work and cool histories from Biblioplan to go along with SOTW.

This year we are going to be studying Astronomy with Exploring Creation with Astronomy. We are going to use their notebooking products. I am going to supplement G's work by using Paige's books from Great Scientist

For math we are still using Math U See. I am thinking about adding in Life of Fred for Graham and Sir Cumference for E and J.

Peace Hill Press is still one of my favorite resources for language arts. Both E and J will continue with First Language Lessons. All three older boys will be using Writing with Ease. In the fall we are expecting the release of their middle school materials and I want to use Advanced Language Lessons and Writing with Skill with Graham once they are released. We are also using Phonetic Zoo for the first time this year.

In addition to all of this the boys would like to play soccer again and we will do that depending on when the season starts. I also am looking at starting G and E in guitar lessons. We have some amazing musicians in our church and one of them has taught lesson in the past.

Our Curriculum choices for the Year

Found this fun blog hop and thought I would join in. I have done a couple of posts about curriculum that I love and thought I would show what our choices are for the upcoming year.


Tapestry of Grace

This year TOG will be our spine for history, literature, geography and writing.  I am excited to use this program and am almost ready to get started with it.  We will be studying Year 1 which covers the time from Creation to the fall of Rome.  This has various readers and writing assignments based on their age and level so even though they will all be studying the same time period they will have reading and writing assignments that are appropriate for their ages.

First Language Lessons and Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading

Grammar study for the year.  We will be using three different levels of FLL this year.  Also two of the boys will continue to work through OPG which is a great phonics program.

Math U See

All of the boys will be using different levels of MUS this year.  Graham is switching back after almost of a year of a different math program. 

Classic Science Life

This is our first year trying this science program but I think it will be a good intro to the scientific method for the boys. 

Italic Handwriting

Great handwriting program that all the boys will be using this year.  I really like how legible their handwriting is with this program. 

They will also do art and typing.

For extracurricular I am hoping to get them in some type of music lessons and they play soccer and baseball.

FREE curriculum choices

I really do think great curriculum is worth paying for BUT there are times when budgets are tight and you need something to teach a specific subject or even to give extra practice on a subject.

This list is posted and updated by a fellow homeschooling mom and it is a great resource. I love that it is broken down by categories and even if you don't homeschool your kids there are great resources for after school learing or projects.

Free Curriculum

Resources and Curriculum

When you begin to look for homeschool materials it can be overwhelming. There are lots of choices. One of the best resource books is Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks for Homeschooling.  She really breaks down learning and teaching styles and then pairs the best resources for each style. 

For more info on the Charlotte Mason philosophy, as well as curriculum and book lists Simply Charlotte Mason is a great resource.  For a free Charlotte Mason Curriculum check out Ambleside Online.  Both of these sites have great reading lists for all ages/grades that are free to access.

We have used several different curriculum choices since we started homeschooling in 2005.  They all have different strengths but are all great choices for different reasons.  We started with Sonlight which may be one of the best known Christian curriculum choices.    We also used Winterpromise and loved their Animal Worlds program.   We actually still read some of the books from this program.  This past year we read some of the books from their Children Around the World program as we studied world cultures.  As I blogged at the first of the year we used My Father's World Exploring Country and Cultures this year for a year of world geography, missions and world cultures.  It has been a fun year and it has been great to learn more about the cultures many of our families and friends are serving.  This year brings us some more changes.  As I started researching different curriculum I knew I wanted to do something that would start a four year rotation of history based on The Well Trained Mind.  We already use many of the resources from Peace Hill Press and love them.  As I researched I knew that Winterpromise wasn't the way I wanted to go.  I really like their choices but haven't been pleased with their Instructor Guides.  I Like My Father's World and love their focus on the Bible but wanted something a little different.  I began to read and research Tapestry of Grace.  I like their Biblical focus.  I liked the four year history rotation.  I like that the boys are studying the same thing but on their own level.  I really like that it incorporates writing into the year.  I also like the independence it promotes in older students.  Then a friend offered to let me borrow her year one and that cinched the deal for me.  I am in the planning stages and am looking forward to seeing how this works for us this year.

Preschool Fun

We have had a lot of fun this year using resources from Tot School.  I posted here with photos of our favorite tot book.  I haven't actually made any more books because they were too much work for me not easy for W to use.  But there are some other ideas we have used.  Here are how we used some of the games from Making Learning Fun to use with the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  W also loves to play with his aquadoodle, blocks from Math U See and the wooden letter pieces from Handwriting Without Tears.

All of these things plus lots of books have made for a fun preschool year.  I am hoping to incorporate Letter of the Week this next year.  I have all the lessons laid out in lesson plans for the year and I think it will be a fun year and will give us lots of ideas of things for W to do while the boys are doing school.

First Grade, Part 2 in my Curriculum Choice Series

This post is pretty easy to write since we will be starting first grade with J in the fall.

Here is my list of what I plan to use.

Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading

Explode the Code

First Language Lessons

Italic Handwriting

Story of the World

Writing Aids

Classic Life Science

Math U See

We have used some of this before OPG and ETC are both old favorites.  We have used MUS from the beginning for math and love the program.  This is our first year using Classic Life Science.  I chose it for the other boys and because it is free it will be nice to see how this program works for all of them.  We will use Writing Aids and SOTW along with Tapestry of Grace.  This is our first year using TOG and I have a feeling there will be a learning curve but I am excited about it. 

Again there are lots of different options for homeschooling.  We lean toward a classic/Charlotte Mason model and my choices reflect that direction. 

Next time I will post some of the things we use for preschool aka keeping W entertained. 

Homeschooling Kindergarten and First Grade, part 1

For anyone who reads my blog you know that it is a mishmash of things that are going on in my life some things on church planting, personal devotionals and revelations, some home making and some homeschooling.

In the past year, I have had several people ask me about homeschooling from the general of "How do you start?" to the more specific with curriculum recommendations.

I really am passionate about homeschooling.  I feel strongly that it is what God has called our family to at this season of our life.  I realize that it may not always be this way and reserve the right to change our focus if we feel like God asks us to but right now we love it.  In the fall we will start our 6th year of homeschooling.  I have done kindergarten three times and have come to love the simplicity of the age and their thirst for knowledge.  This year several friends/acquaintances have asked specifically about kindergarten and 1st grade curriculum choices. 

First, there are a literal ton of resources on the web and in print for homeschoolers.  I realize that my choices are not necessarily the best choices for everyone  but I feel confident recommending these to anyone who wants to homeschool kindergarten, I think the best thing you can do is read, read and read some more.  I firmly believe that a child that learns to read and enjoy books will be able to accomplish anything they want to do.

For reading I highly recommend The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.  It is a wonderful stand alone phonics/reading program.  We have used this program with three boys and they are all wonderful readers at their own level.  For more reinforcement we use Explode the Code workbooks.  There is a new online version that I am tempted by but so far we have stuck with the workbooks.  These are inexpensive workbooks.  They don't line up exactly with OPG but we haven't had any problem using them.

I have started all the boys using Handwriting without Tears which is a very good program but I don't love the way their handwriting looks.  So I have been switching over to Italic and J will switch to Italic in first grade.  I will start W in Italic and skip HWT.  HWT is a great program if you have a reluctant writer or one that struggles with correct penmanship.  My problem with it was purely cosmetic.  I will have to say that after almost two years of Italic with G that his handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds. 

Math U See is a home run for elementary math especially if you struggle to explain first grade math concepts to your six year old are not confident teaching math.  We use the DVDs as teaching time.  The boys watch their lesson (usually anywhere from 5-10 minutes) then I go over their worksheets and explain any instructions and they do their work.  If there is something they don't understand I pull out the manipulative's (wonderful Lego like blocks) and we work through the problem together.  Great program developed by a homeschool dad who is also a math teacher.

For science/geography in kindergarten I used a lot of resources recommend by Winterpromise in their Animal World series.  We loved the DK Animal Encyclopedia and also all the books in the One Small Square series which teaches geography and also science.  Again I feel like the ability to be relaxed and read a lot at this age is such a benefit.

I know some people want a box set of curriculum and there are several out there.

One that is free on the net and which I have pulled lots of resources from is Letter of the Week.  Katrina Lybbert has put together a wonderful set of curriculum for teaching preschoolers and early elementary children.  She is developing a science and country curriculum that looks just as fabulous as her original work and the best thing is that she shares her work freely.  Most of the books she recommends can be found in the library or you can easily find substitutes.

to be continued on another day...

Filing system

Over at Well Trained Mind Forums there was discussion about the use of a weekly filing system for all your school work.  I was intrigued by the idea and I love any reason to organize anything so I read and read some more and then I decided that this was something that would help me us stay on track this next year.  I already had a box and tons of file folders so I grabbed some markers and all our school work and went to work. 

This next year we are going to be using Tapestry of Grace for our history/literature/geography/writing and TOG is broken down into four units of nine weeks each.  There are roughly nine weeks of summer until we start our fall session, so I put together a summer session and then four sessions for TOG starting in the fall.

I also used colored folders for each of the boys individual work.  So they each have a set of ten folders.  One is a general folder with their names, then other nine are numbered and used each week.  Right now I am pulling out one weekly master folder which holds any work that we do together and then each boys weekly folder and keeping it in the basket by my chair.

This is my file box.  I chose not to use hanging files because I figured that I wouldn't need them at this point.  You can see the master weekly files at the front and the boys files (colored numbers) sticking up in the back.

Here is my weekly box. I am pulling the files and keep them in this box with any books I want to use with the boys and it also is currently home to my master home management binder which will be finished one day in the distant future soon. 

I did decide to take all our manuals apart.  I thought all of two seconds about it long and hard about it.  My decision was based on the fact that some of our books were tattered and torn in need of a little more care.  I decided to take those books apart and put the pages in page protectors.  I hole punched everything and made spine labels and placed everything in the excess binders I somehow accumulated recycled binders.

I went through all of our plans for next year that I had (grammar, math, phonics and handwriting) and divided out the number of lessons by the number of weeks and then put that number of lesson in each week.  For our summer session, I had some plans of some different fun things we would work on so I planned those weeks out accordingly and placed the resources in the appropriate week.

I am a little bit of geek about organization so this system was a lot of fun to set up.  We are finishing up our second week using it and I am finding that having the work divided out in manageable chunks has made it much easier for me to get through the material we need to in a week. 

Also I have been able to look at plans for next week and actually print out some extra worksheets to go along with certain lessons.  This system seems to work well for me because I am a visual learner and this helps keep my perfectionist/ocd tendencies in check.

Thrifty School Room Decor

We redid our schoolroom this week here.  I wanted something on the walls but wanted something cheap unique.  So I took our world map from last year and cut it into continents.  I then took some black frames that were in storage and framed the maps.  Viola!  Unique artwork in our school room.

Then I wanted the boys to have a place to display all their treasures so I found this blog about making Thrifty Dollar Store Art.  I loved the idea of a cork board.  I headed to our local Dollar Store.  I only visited one of the four that we have in our town.  You know because you need four dollar stores before you have a Target.  They didn't have the cork boards in stock.  But I found white display board that I thought would work.  They also had large letters for wall art.  I spent $5.  I cut the display board down to fit in more recycled frames.  I added letters to spell their names.

For other decorations, I found these cute glasses on sale at Target.  The boys each have one on their desks to keep pencils, pens, highlighters and flags in.

Then Ikea to the rescue with these pop up bins.  They were $4 for 3 bins and we keep chalk/boards, science experiement supplies and aqua wonder supplies organized.

School Room Redesign

Last year I posted photos of our school room.  We loved it for a while but discovered that it was problematic since W loved to explore. When we were tucked away in the schoolroom aka spare bedroom, he was exploring the rest of the house and leaving a mess in his wake. So we moved school to the living area and rearranged bedrooms to give the boys a playroom and Tim an office.

Fast forward a year and we are at the point of needing a school room again. Since we had moved the boys into the master bedroom, we converted their playroom into our new school room.

We still have a few things to do/adjust but I really think this is going to work well for us.

Here are some pictures of our redesign.

The older two boys have a desk with a bookshelf in between them. They have their boxes and most of their books on the bookshelf along with some different activity oriented boxes.

Then J has a desk on the other wall. Right now we have two more bookcases but our plan is to buy one more desk and a taller bookcase. (I love Ikea.) and W will have a place to play and work with the others.

The larger desk with drawers (why is one of them open?) is mine. I spend most of my time in the black chair and the closet has been converted to my resource closet. It holds text books/binders, extra supplies, extra books we aren't using currently, our globe, some games and my printer.

So far (two weeks in) this has been a great new set up for us.

Updated workbox system

I have spent the last week revamping my lesson plans for the rest of the year and also my workbox system. We were only using parts of this system from Sue Patrick. This past week I decided that we needed some more structure in our day and that we are going to give this system another try.

Here are some pictures of our boxes. We do school in our living room and this bookcase holds all our school books and supplies we use daily.



This is a close up of W's box and the contents for this week. I am using file folders to divide their activities/school work up (instead of plastic shoe box containers). There is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and a game for W and J to play together, HWT wooden pieces and the letter F for W to build, Brown Bear, Brown Bear and activities, also included but not pictured is a sheet of stickers, color wonder sheet with markers and a Zootle magazine I will read with W and J.






This is J's box and activities for the week. The first thing in J's box is his schedule card. I labeled his file folders with numbers which match those on his schedule. His schedule card also has some extras scheduled. To save space I am only putting actual work in the folders and then extras get put on the card for him to work on. The next item is his clipboard which he uses to do work since we don't usually sit at a desk or table and on it is his morning routine list. These are things that need to be done before we start school. Then you see a file folder with the number on the outside and his Explode the Code book, a folder with his 100 chart and finally a folder with a reading game. He has a total of about 6 folders with 6 additional items on his schedule. Some of his extras include riding his bike, playing a game with his brothers (Hi Ho Cherry O), reading (which isn't in a folder because I use the same phonics book with E and J right now, and playing a game with W (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). I expect that he will also participate in some of the things I do with W.








I didn't take pictures of G and E's boxes but they are similar in contents. I have used the schedule cards to add in computer typing games, math drill and art to their daily schedule. So I am hopeful that this will help us complete more work and have fun at the same time.

I am going to post some more photos later this week of our reading area and centers that are also in our living room to give an idea of how we do school and live in the same space.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, M&Ms and Science?

I enjoy homeschooling. Then there are days when it is just so much fun that I can't imagine doing anything else. We had a small break while family was visiting (and I need to post those pictures too) so this week we really had to get back to "real" schoolwork.

But several months ago I found this fun activity to do using the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle. Since Will loves that book I printed out and laminated the sheets for the activity but we never got around to doing it. This week I bought the M&Ms and gave the boys the sheets and they loved it (chocolate, what's not to love?).

They had one sheet that they laid the M&Ms on by color. Then the older boys had another sheet that they used to tally the number of M&Ms by color. Then the best part...they got to eat them. I think I won a cool mom teacher award to for this little science classification project.

Our first week of school...

completed! We finished our first week of school and it was a good week.

We learned about maps and globes this week. We are using a combination of MFW Kindergarten and Exploring Countries and Cultures and just for fun we are throwing in books from Winterpromise Children Around the World and Animal Worlds.

This was J's first week of school and he was a champ. We spent this week doing assessments and reviewing different skills. The first two weeks of My Father's World K studies the story of Creation so that is what we focused on in our Bible time. We learned what God made on the first four days of Creation.

For language arts, J started using Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I have used this with both G and E and love the systematic approach to reading and phonics. J learned the first four lines in the "The Five Vowels" this week

A is the first vowel we will say.
/a/ is the short-vowel sound of a.
E is the next vowel, don't you see?
/e/ is the short-vowel sound of e.
I is the third vowel that goes by.
/i/ is the short-vowel sound of i.
O is the fourth vowel that I know.
/o/ is the short-vowel sound of o.

For ECC we all read There's a Map in My Lap, People, Maps and Mapping, Geography A to Z and Maps and Globes. G and E both made vocabulary cards using the map and geography books and they copied different writing styles from the book People. These will go in a lapbook that we are going to make next week about our intro to geography.

Today we did a fun experiment with an orange to see why it is hard to make a flat map of the earth.


Drawing the continents on an orange.


Trying to make the orange peel a "flat" map.


Snack time.


A car wash to end the week.

Our first day of school with school pictures.

We started school today. Here is J hard at work on drawing his Creation picture and writing his name.



E working on phonics/spelling.



G and W playing with the tot book games I made for Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see?



This is something new I am trying this year. I have found two sites that have lots of fun activities that work with different children's books. W loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear Tot Books has lots of cute ideas on making "tot books" which are a spin off of lapbooks. I modified this so that I made the individual parts of the "tot book" but decided to just keep them stored in library pockets for now. I may change my mind in the future and actually make a "tot book" but it worked better today for me to be able to give W an individual activity rather than all of them at once.



These are the individual games that I made for the books. As you can see, W wasn't the only one that enjoyed these activities.



J was playing with the "head and tail matching game" and came up with making funny animals, like a "cat fish" and a "flying fish". He has a vivid imagination!

Another site I love is Making Learning Fun I downloaded the M&M Sorting mat and also made the "I Spy" bottle for Brown Bear, Brown Bear. W wasn't as impressed with the "I Spy" bottle and we haven't used the M&M mat because I forgot to pick up M&M's at the store.

Overall we had a good first day of school. The boys did great and I figured out I have to do a better job of planning when they will do certain things since I had several incidents of all of them needing my help at the same time. I spent some time this afternoon working on a schedule so hopefully they will be able to rotate working with me and working independently. We will see how that works out tomorrow.

I am hoping to post there "school" pictures Grammy took later this week and also to post pictures of my Craigslist couch score that I am giving a makeover. Lots of fun things going on at our house right now.