Because being a stinkin' genius runs in the family.

On Saturday we were at the mall.  Remember? Anyway...I failed to mention in that other post that the other reason we were at the mall was to go to Story Time at Barnes and Noble. My girl loves it and the boy will someday too.  After story time was over and I had read 78293983472198 books to the girl I sent her along with the boys to the Apple Store so I could leisurely browse the school books.  Thrills this homeschool mom's heart and makes me gleefully dizzy!

I'm always looking for fun stuff to add to our curriculum and right now I'm in the process of looking for fun things to do this summer.  (Yes, we will be having a summer school session here at The Ball Room Academy.) When I find things I think I might like or just want to spend more time looking at I take a picture of it with my phone and load it into my handy dandy little amazon.com app.  (The BEST app ever designed for this amazon addict!!!) Then I can look at it later and, more than likely, get it a heck of a lot cheaper than at the mall.

So, like I said, I'm looking for fun books for the summer that will reinforce what she has already learned and expand on them just a bit without getting into the stuff she'll study next year.  I found a few really great books.  Actually I found a TON of stuff, but I don't have the patience to link to it all.  So let's look at the highlight reel, mkay? Good.

She loves the word problems in her Math-U-See book, so I thought this might be a fun book to work through.

And this looks like a great compliment to the reading and phonics work that she's been working on already.

This one might just be an all-in-one book for everything.

This looks like it would be a great little exercise for each day.

So have you noticed a theme here at all?  Say, perhaps the grade level of all these books? They're all a 1st grade level.  My girl is currently in Kindergarten so I guess it wouldn't seem all that remarkable for her to use 1st grade books this summer since, after all, she will be in 1st grade this fall...technically 1st grade because here's the thing... I'm looking for these books to reinforce everything she's already learned and expand upon those things.  She can already do all of the work in these books.  She's been at a 1st grade level since before Christmas.  

How is that possible? you ask. Well, other than the fact that being a stinkin' genius runs in our family, homeschooling affords us the opportunity to learn at our own pace.  When she's grasped a concept we don't have 25 other students to wait on before moving to the next lesson.  She gets undivided one-on-one lessons geared specifically for her learning styles. We can do twice as much work in half the time.  

That, my friends, is the beauty of homeschool. It's may not be for everyone but for it is us.  

Happy President's Day!

This is how we celebrated President's Day here at the Ball Room Academy...




And then we did this...

One Day Down, Fifteen Years to Go

I am still alive and what's better is that my little preschooler is to.  We survived our first day of homeschool with only one timeout (for Mommy) and 1 slight change in curriculum.  I do believe it was a success despite a few hiccups along the way.  

We hadn't even been together for 10 minutes before I was crying out to God for patience.  After about 10 more minutes of silent pleadings, I made a lame excuse and ran to my room to hide from my eager preschooler.  She stayed downstairs "coloring her numbers."  I hid out in my room and called my girlfriend for a reality check.  (I transcribed the conversation with a tiny bit of embellishment here.  But shhh... don't give me away.)  She thought it was horribly humorous and to be honest, so did I, but it just felt good to laugh about it with a girlfriend rather than pull my hair out completely in front of My Little One.  

I would love to show you all that we did today, but I'm too tired to go downstairs and scan it in.  I was also too lazy to take a proper picture of our first day of school here at The Ballroom Academy.  Maybe we'll stage one later this evening and post it.  You won't care if it's a fraud.  I know in 20 years, I won't care.  

A New Job...

I'm starting a new job tomorrow.  Normally I would be a basket case the night before, complete with butterflies and anxiety, but strangely, I'm not.  I'm actually so excited about it that you might even call it being thrilled.  

Funny but I'm totally unqualified for the position.  I've had no real experience in the field, nor have I had any formal training.  Truth be told, the job pays absolute crap.  I'm not sure where this position will lead me.  All I know is that the responsibly I will be assuming tomorrow is great.  I will be solely responsible to the well being of all that I've been entrusted with.  

Wow!  Sounds daunting.  I should be scared spit-less!  But I'm not.  Not even a little bit.  I'm as prepared for tomorrow as I can be.  I'll have to leave the rest up to God and the innate ability He has given me to succeed at this new position.  I am pretty excited.  

It will most likely be the most laid back, relaxed job I've ever had; at least that's my approach.  I'll kill myself and all who are near me if I let myself get stressed out and anal about things that don't matter.  I need to keep what matters most always in the forefront of my mind.  

Tomorrow I begin homeschooling my 3 year old.  I must be crazy.  Pray for me.