The Bookshelf Saga: Part 1

When we moved from Tennessee to Washington, we had 33 boxes of books, and by the time we moved into this log house, I had collected just a few more.

(Boxes?  Or books?  I'm not telling!  My husband's reading this!)

That collection has grown even more during the years we've lived here, but they're (mostly) for school, and I like to plan ahead, so...

We want to put in some really cool built-in shelves along these walls on the upstairs landing, but in the meantime, my shelves were cardboard boxes, stacked up on top of each other and reinforced with boards between layers.

The shelves along this adjacent wall were even worse:

and there was no improving them.  In the last configuration the box-shelves were five rows tall instead of the three in this picture, with no wooden bookcase and with less uniformly sized boxes.

And the top two rows were starting to lean forward away from the wall.

Scary.

To save our children's skulls and their mother's sanity, we bought some "temporary" bookshelves for the larger wall,

and Mike built "rustic" temporary bookshelves for me along the short wall.

But my husband doesn't do things half way.

He built "rustic" temporary bookshelves for me...

...with built-in lighting on each shelf!

The rest of the story (or at least more pictures) is coming soon!

Stretching Our Math Horizons

After we finish the Pledge of Allegiance and our daily review, we do Math.  We started Horizons Math this year, and so far, I'm planning to stick with it for next year too.  

All of the reviews that I read before I bought it said that Horizons Math is an advanced curriculum.  When it arrived and I compared their Kindergarten program side by side with the Calvert Kindergarten curriculum that I had used for Jaela and Macey, I discovered that the reviewers were telling the truth!  I started Jaela and Macey in Horizons 1 at the beginning of the year, and quickly discovered that in NO way whatsoever had that Kindergarten Math curriculum prepared them for Horizons 1st Grade Math.  (OK, to be fair, they DID learn shapes, patterns,  how to count to 30, and that there are different kinds of coins, but that was about it.)  So, I bought the workbooks for the second half of Kindergarten for them.  They have done fine, and once they realized that they are doing "Kindergarten Math -- the same as Anya!", they have worked even harder and done two lessons a day so they can get to the 1st grade stuff.  :)

I'll admit it though, even though this program is user-friendly, none of us like Math.  Anya says she does, until it is actually time to do it.  :)  I haven't let on to the kids how I feel about Math, but we do it in the beginning of our day so that we can get it over with and get on to the stuff we really enjoy.  But they don't need to know that.  :)

Repetition, Repetition

We begin every school day (except for Tuesdays, since we leave the house between 7:30 and 8:00 for CHET) with the Pledge of Allegiance.  Our address and phone numbers, how to dial 911, and all the memory verses we've worked on as well as the current one are all posted on the bulletin board above our school-table for easy reference.  After the Pledge of Allegiance, we review our address and phone numbers, and our memory verse for the week.  About once a week, we also review how and when to dial 911.

Our memory verses (in the NIV) this year are ABC verses.  Each week's verse starts with the next letter of the alphabet.  (A:  All Scripture is God-breathed...  B:  Blessed are the...  C:  Children, obey your parents...  and so on.)  Most of the verses were chosen for their, um, instructive nature, and as I have mentioned in an earlier post, they're not only instructive for the kids;  I need them too!  :)