Holden's First Day of "School!"

Today was Holden's first day of "school!" I stayed up until 1 AM this morning trying to set up a schedule for Sonlight's PK 3/4 program. It comes with just a checklist of things to read and do, but I really wanted a schedule to hold me accountable and balance out the workload. I had tried to put it into a table the way I do the other kids' schedules, but because most of his stories are in treasuries, typing the long names out made it so it wouldn't fit in a traditional scheduling table. So I decided to download the free basic version of Homeschool Tracker and plug it into that to see if it would give me a decent printable schedule to use, and it worked out great! I loved how I didn't have to keep retyping the information...I could just select it from the drop-down menu of resources, and I didn't have to duplicate my efforts. Anyway, I had to do a little tweaking at first, but I stayed at it until I got the first trimester all entered in before I went to bed. Then I added some of the second trimester this morning and got it done all the way through June. So I went ahead and printed out this week's school schedule for him, and he and I sat down and did yesterday's and today's assignments and got all caught up.

I was surprised at how excited he was! He just turned two last week. I asked him if he wanted to sing some songs first, and he said yes and climbed up to the bar and sat beside me like Haylee does for school. It was so cute! I put the disc of Wee Sing Nursery Rhyme songs in my laptop, and we did a couple of them together. He clapped along and smiled and really enjoyed them! Then we read a couple of storybooks and a couple of bible stories. He was really interested in the Picture Book Classics. He really paid attention and pointed to things in the pictures and named them. I could tell he really enjoyed it! The book of bible stories was way beyond him and far too long to hold his interest. I might reschedule those for the end of the year when his vocabulary is a little more advanced, and I'll just substitute the Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers to use right now. I think that's more his speed at this point, and it has very coloful illustrations and short rhyming text. I remember reading that to Hayden when he was this age.

So anyway, all in all, it was very successful! I think I'll do his school with him in the mornings when he is fresh, before I start school with Hayden and Haylee.

Hayden and Haylee are both sick with a nasty cold, and I have to get some serious dental work done this afternoon. I've had two crowns on the same tooth, and it fell out again last week. I think I'm gonna have to get an implant today. Not fun. Maybe they can try recementing this one again. I'm not sure what the problem was. They used a post to support it this last time, so it wasn't supposed to be able to fall out. The dentist says the base of the tooth may have cracked this time, in which case I'll have to do a partial denture or an implant. I just turned 38, so there's no way I'm getting a denture! I don't want a metal crown, either, because it shows when I smile. It's shameful how much money I've had to spend on this tooth already, between the root canal, the first crown, the recementation, the second crown, and now the implant alone will cost over $2,000. Sigh. Always something.