And the Telephone Rang...

It really did. And guess who was on the other end?


Guess? Come on take a guess?

Oh never mind, you'll never guess in a million years. I'll spill...

It was Karen Brooks. Who on earth is Karen Brooks, you might ask?

Karen Brooks is the wife of Don Brooks. Come on, you remember Don right? They are the owners of Winter Promise. And as you might know, Winter Promise and I did not part on the best of terms.  So imagine my surprise to find Mrs. Brooks on the other end of the line.

So what did Mrs. Brooks want??? She wanted said that she wanted to touch base with me on a couple of things. I'll admit I was a little leery of what she might have to say, being that I have not hid my displeasure with my experience, from them or the world. Possibly she had read my blog?? (Yes. )

So here's the lowdown...

First of all, she wanted to let me know that if you order their e-books, you will not be charged shipping. (I told you she read my blog. ) Long story short, whatever web system they use can not differentiate between physical and e-books. So when you load up your cart it will show shipping charges. At the very end of the check out process, this charge will be removed. Score 1 for WP. That might be something that they want to announce all over their web site though. Loud and proud.

(And as long as I'm offering up opinions, maybe Bill Gates could spend his "brains", money and time creating some kind of affordable system for small businesses that will remedy this type of problem. You know, instead of sticking his hand into the business of educating children. Something that he has know knowledge of or business in. Just sayin', in case Bill happens to be reading too. Stick with your area of expertise buddy.)

Secondly, she apologized to me for the miserable experience that I had with their program. She seemed very sincere. She offered up a lot of reasons why there were so many problems with the 2011 Children Around the World program. I do empathize with how difficult it must have been with many of the titles in the program being discontinued and how they had to scramble to come up with some kind of fix for it, I do. I get that they are a small, family owned company and it's hard. It doesn't make me feel any better about my experience or the money I lost but I appreciate that she owned it for the most part.

Lastly, and most importantly, she thanked me for letting them know about my experience so they could look into the problems I mentioned and take action.  She said that she went through my email point by point, and that I played a pivotal role in the complete overhaul of the program.   I know, right?

  Me

All joking about my awesomeness aside, (I'm not joking), I was beyond thrilled to hear that actually listened and made changes. And totally shocked.

How good are the changes? I don't know. I haven't seen it.

Here's what I do know... 

From what I've been told...

The maps have been redrawn. I believe they now include the border of Eastern Europe and Iceland. I'm so happy for Iceland. And maybe even some of those seas over in Europe no longer look like land-locked lakes. I'm taking her word on it.

They have gone through the books and removed quite a few that I thought were  complete snooze fests filled with useless information. (Feel free to thank me for sparing you from having to butcher the Mandarin language while reading aloud to your child.) It's true. I checked. Those Find Out About books are outta there.

Mrs. Brooks mentioned that she completely redid the World Travel Diary to include more information to beef it up and help the student complete the assignments. I peeked at the sample, it does look vastly improved from what I saw.

Here's What I Don't Know...

I don't know whether the scheduling of the books is more cohesive. I'm not sure if you'll still be reading about Switzerland while studying Russia or Africa. Or the Caribbean while studying Switzerland. I really don't know. I can't imagine why they wouldn't look into that since I had mentioned it. So a hopeful maybe?

I don't whether or not you'll be able to get your money back if you don't like it. They have altered their return policy a little bit. You now get six weeks to use the program. Unfortunately the six weeks now begins at the time you place your order instead of when it ships. And word on the street is that the company still has difficulty getting the orders out in a timely manner. It took over 5 months for me to get my (in)complete order, the IG being one of the last things we received. We were out a grand due to that return policy. By the time our return policy expired, we had only a few items.

I don't know why they were so surprised by what I said. They have both told me that they've never been told these things before. Like I've previously written, a lot of my complaints were the same ones that I'd found on their very own message boards from years prior. I can only assume that running small business on top of caring for and homeschooling a family doesn't allow for making the reading their boards a priority. But still you'd think at least once in all those years they'd have caught something.

So Now What???

I was really pleased that she called and told me that she took what I said to heart. She seemed really sincere and very passionate about making the changes. I really appreciate that she took the time to let me know. It couldn't have been easy for her. I was pretty ticked at the end and, quite frankly, I'd have been a bit nervous about making the call had I been in her shoes.

I'm really glad that they are trying to make their product better for their customers. While the improvements don't help those who bought the program when I did, or help any of us recoup our losses, it was the right thing to do.

Am I ready to write a glowing endorsement??

Probably not. Part of that is because I'm sticking with what works for my family, so I'll likely never try the new stuff. The other part is more of a once bitten, twice shy kind of thing.  But different strokes for different folks, right?

After this conversation, I do believe that Mrs. Brooks sincerely wants to provide a good product. I believe that she's working hard on it. It's probably going to take some time to get it where she wants it. It's a small company and she's had to learn some publishing lessons the hard way. The kinks are still being worked out but she's learning as she goes.

So if a Winter Promise program looks good to you, here are some tips...

You may or may not get an itemized list of what you order. (I didn't.) So make sure that you make a detailed list about what you should be receiving, down to the last item.

I'd order the IG first. In fact, I'd probably call and ask how long it's going to take to ship. That is important because, remember, the six week return policy starts when you place your order. So if you don't receive the product until week seven (or month 5) then you will have lost the option to return it before you ever receive it.

I'd personally order as much as I could from another company, like Amazon, and only order WP exclusives from them. You'll get your stuff faster.

Go through the IG and exclusives as soon as you get them. Remember time is ticking. If you find something wrong/missing/whatever, alert WP immediately.

What I've Learned...

First, research before you buy. Had I looked on their forums I might have made a different decision. Sample are great, word of mouth is better.

Secondly, and most importantly, companies can't fix something if they don't know it's broke. I've posted a lot about my experience with this company and I have received a lot of comments from others who've  had a similar experience with some of their other programs. Many of whom admitted that they never said anything to the company about the errors and issues that they had.

If this experience taught me nothing else, I've learned that I can make a difference. (Who knew this mouth was good for something?) One person speaking up brought change for others. It didn't recoup my cost, but hopefully it made someone else's experience better.

Most of us homeschoolers are single income families. We need to make those precious dollars count. Most of us cannot afford to lose a thousand dollars.

Knowing this, we should look out for each other. If we find a problem with a curriculum purchase, it's our duty to alert the company. In that way we will be helping our fellow home schoolers from experiencing what we did. We're helping the company provide a better product. We're helping everyone make those hard-earned dollars count.

I urge you to start notifying companies when you have a problem. (And feel free to share what you liked as well.)  It can only benefit us all.

Another winter promise Fail

If you don't already know it, I am not a huge fan of the winter promise curriculum.  The company itself or the crappy product that they peddle.

Why you might ask? Here's the short list...

winter promise Recap

1) The crappy customer service. It's the worst. It took 5 months to get my (incomplete) order. FIVE MONTHS. Really. And I never received confirmation of what I would be receiving. When it would be shipping. Not even a packing list. I never did get everything.  You can read about my thoughts as it happened.

2) The material that I used, children around the world, was a complete pile of junk.  The maps were incorrect. All the freaking time. The IG was a complete and utter mess. Page numbers wrong time and time again for starters.  The notebooking pages were crap. Several of the books published by them were filled spelling and grammar errors. I could go on and on with specifics. But I'm not going to now because I already did.  Click the link and see all the horrible mistakes I found during the five weeks that I used the program. The link will show the posts starting with the most recent so you might want to click to the start of it all.

3) The return policy is a JOKE.  Please read this carefully and note the part I highlighted.

Basically, three weeks after I got the stickers and one book, my chance to return this crap was over. You know, since it took another 5 months to get the rest.

4) They know their product is junk and they don't care.  I talked with the owner on several occasions. I went into explicit detail about the errors that I found. On one product, the $30 book filled with spelling and grammar errors, he owned up to. Sort of. They knew it was like that but sold it anyway without alerting the customer. The rest he played dumb about.

Which makes him a liar because I researched their message boards and found post after post showing people complaining about the very issues I spoke of. People had been posting about it for years.  His responses were less then satisfactory and an embarrassment to his company.

Please be sure to click the links so that you know what you're getting into when you purchase from them. We lost thousands of dollars to this company. We're blessed that it didn't break us, but not every one is in the same financial position as we are.

So Why am I Bringing this up Again?

First and foremost, because I'm very passionate about making sure that other people don't get ripped off by them the way that I was.

Secondly, they're still trying to rip you off.  Last year they started venturing in the world of e-books. I thought that was an interesting tactic. I figured at the very list it would be easier for them to correct errors and stop sending people the error riddled physical books. At least with an e-book they could correct the error and send you a new link or something.

My bad for giving them the benefit of the doubt again. I don't know whether or not they would update an error because no way in heck am I giving them a dime of my money again. But here's what I do know.

They will charge you shipping on your e-book!!!!!  That's right they are making their customers pay shipping on something that they can email. Holy Creep of the Year Batman!!!  Who does that?

In an effort to be fair and not take somebody's word on this fact. I loaded up my cart with an e-book. I'll let my e-cart do the talking.

What losers!  

And now you've been warned.

For those of you who have been missing my...

 winter promise posts...

Do I have a treat for you...

When I logged onto Facebook today, I found this...

Oh yeah baby! don wants to be my Facebook friend.  Maybe he forgot that he banned me from posting on his forums.

And for the record, I have never posted on his forums.  I think he was being proactive incase I decided to post any of my questions to him or his unsatisfactory answers. (Quite possibly the smartest thing he's ever done since I've known him.)

And that's not all...

My bff, Andra, has been using wp's All American 1 this year.  It has not been a pleasant year for her at all.  She decided to plow through it though.  (On the bright side, there's been lots of stories of ridiculousness for me to listen too.  Don't worry, she'll be blogging about it eventually and I promise to share when she does.)

Anyhoooo...her most recent dilemma has been a read aloud issue.  As in they start reading a book (Great Horn Spoon) get fourteen chapters into it (out of 18) and suddenly wp stop scheduling it and schedule a new book.  They start the new book, Wild West, on p. 20.

And it gets better. She never received the Wild West! As you know, their shipping practices are deplorable at best.  Like myself, she never received an order confirmation listing everything she'd be getting and there were never any shipping notices or packing lists.  So it's not a real big shock that this could happen.  She went back and checked her website and didn't even see the new book listed there.

So when she got the FB request from wp, she decided to ask her question there.  And I thought that I'd share the exchange with you because I know how you love all this wp madness.  Please read on with the knowledge, that my friend is even more blunt than I am.  She's not one to mince words.  So read with that in mind.

Bwaa haa haaa!!  They took the book out and left it in the IG.  Which is par for the course with them as my Children Around the World core had books scheduled that they were no longer using. Classic wp!

So just in case you've been wondering, the problems are not just limited to the Children Around the World study.

But speaking of CAW, I've got another fun nugget regarding it.  Since Mackenzie has finished with her  "official" history for the year, and I want her to continue with some school reading, I decided to assign her some of our left over books from our wp misadventure. (Not anything written or published by them, of course!)  Seeing as we just finished studying Russia, and CAW covers Russia, I decided to use the reader that they selected.  I get out out my not-so-trusty wp IG and look at the index to see what week Russia is studied. Week 9.

 Then I pull out the reading schedule for the readers. (Which, f.y.i., is a single sheet of paper that I paid $8 for.  And they forgot to send it with the readers so it arrived in an letter sized envelope all rumpled and torn.) I peruse the schedule and see that Treasures of the Snow (by Patricia St. John who is in no way affiliated with wp) is scheduled for week 9.  Okay. I pull it off of the shelf. As it turns out, it's a book set in Switzerland.  Naturally. For realz. Of course. Seriously. I'm not lying.

If you'll recall, when actually studying Switzerland, they had us reading The Swiss Family Robinson. You know, that book that takes place on a tropical island thought to be in the Caribbean.  That shouldn't surprise me seeing as they have scheduled Heidi to be read during our study of Africa and Asia.

 

On a side note, if you're ever studying Switzerland, consider adding Treasures of the Snow to your reading list. There's quite a bit about the Swiss culture and it's been a good read. It might not, however, be the best choice if you happen to be studying Russia.

A Little of This and That

I know, I know, I haven't been keeping up with my blogging lately.  It's not my fault I've been busy homeschooling and tending to my  kingdom on Castleville.  For realz.  It's not easy running a kingdom.

Since I only did a wrap-up for Kayleigh last week, I was planning on doing one for Mackenzie this week.  The weekend got busy and I didn't get to it.  I haven't even taken the pictures off of my camera in over a week.  I'm feeling daunted by the amount of editing that I have in my future.  Oh my!

Since Mackenzie's schedule for the year was blasted by the Winter Promise Joke debacle, I'm trying to decide when to end the school year.  I think we're going to end our Sonlight studies when we finish our current study on Russia.  Then we'll pick up where we left off in August or whenever I decide to start back up.  We will definitely continuing on with science and math until they are finished.

I'm torn about grammar.  We just started Growing With Grammar a few months ago, when Susan Wise Bauer crushed my dreams and decided not to publish Advanced Language Lessons.  Ugh!  Those first 15 weeks she let us all use were wonderful.  To tease us with the first 15 weeks and then snatch it away was too, too cruel.  I'm leaning on continuing on with it  through the summer, so she can be on grade level for our new school year.

We had a busy week of outside activities.  A field trip to Ripley's Believe It or Not.  There are photos but they are on my friend's camera and I'm awaiting their arrival to my inbox.  She's remodeling three bathrooms so she's busy.  But take my word that we had fun.

Friday, we headed out to Busch Gardens.  It was a last minute trip and it was a totally awesome and chill day.  Mackenzie even took Kayleigh on as many rides as she wanted.  For once Elmo Land wasn't packed with strollers.

In other news...

The new Winter Promise Joke catalog came out.  Can you believe they actually had the nerve to mail one to me?  I'm actually thinking of writing them a thank you letter because there is blogging gold in that there catalog.  I'm thinking of doing a little series on it because it is jammed packed with little gems that I have opinions on.  Just so you don't have to wait forever, I'll share this one with you.

Hardy har har har!!  They are offering to grade your student's written work.  Bwaaa haaa haaa haaa!  Have they read any of their own publications???  Ever???  Clearly not based on the amount of errors you run across in them.  I'm going to go more in detail with the ludicrousness of this "service" at a later date. Please know it will include plenty of examples of their own work including one of their very own language arts programs. It's going to be EPIC!!!  

Weekly Wrap-Up: Lots of Christmas Entertainment

Busy, busy time.  We've been continuing on with our Christmas Around the World study.  WP added in another book this week and that upped the content somewhat.  Now we actually feel like we're learning something.  Woot!

One of the first things that we did was actually make the fabric ball ornament from our Russia study last week.  I thought it came out cute.  We also studying Spain, France, Germany, and Sweden this week.  Some of the craft ideas seemed silly to her so she opted not to make them.  It's very interesting to learn about the various traditions in other countries.  A lot of them have been very similar to what we enjoy here but with different little twists.  And it was neat to learn about what countries many of our traditions originated.

For a hands-on activity, Mackenzie decided to make a traditional French Christmas cookie called "colombe."  It means dove.  They are cute little dove shaped cookies.  She made them entirely on her own, from scratch.  Well not entirely.  Her little sister placed the chocolate chip eyes on the birds.

While she didn't choose to do a lot of the crafts from the around the world study, she did several from her little sister's advent activities.  (Truth in the Tinsel) I think that she liked the simplicity of them.  She claims to like crafts but I sense she doesn't really like things that have a lot of steps or "pieces."  Kind of like how her mother feels about cooking.  lol

There were outside activities aplenty this week.  We hit the Scholastic Book Fair with our buddies.  She is a bonafide bookworm so that is always a huge hit with her.  She would've liked to have bought everything she saw but I had to cap her at 5.  She suckered me into 6.    Then we went and had lunch afterwards.  Shopping for books makes everyone hungry.

Our church also had their Christmas play last weekend.  Mackenzie, drama queen that she is, had a part. They performed the Christmas County Spelling Bee and Mackenzie played "Katie Collins-head cheerleader."  Her is a sampling of her skills.  All the kids did a fabulous job.  It was one of the best shows that they've ever done.  So good that our pastor asked them to perform a few numbers for the Christmas eve service.

We also got to go watch her best buddy perform in her school's holiday show.  Mackenzie was a little nervous to go because her friend, formerly homeschooled, now attends public school due to behavior issues.  Mackenzie's attitude hasn't been all that stellar lately and I think she was worried that I might be tempted to leave her there.  LOL  It did cross my mind briefly.  

Not enjoying a glimpse of a possible future. LOL

Awesome performances

Best friends!  And Kayleigh. lol

And if all of that weren't enough Christmas entertainment, Mackenzie had her informal Christmas piano recital this week too.  Shew!!!

And really, there's still more.  Tomorrow we're going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.   We are ready.  We read the book and watched the movie.  Ha!  Hotlips Houlihan was in it.  Woot!!  Can't wait.

Weekly Wrap-Up: A Day Late

So not only have I not "Wrapped-Up" for two weeks, here I am finally getting around to it and I'm a day late.  Better late then never I guess.  Thanksgiving house guests, illness, the Christmas play at church have cut into my blogging time.

We had Thanksgiving week off because my in-laws came to town.  I'd like to say that we showed them a wonderful time but the little one got sick so we didn't get to do much in the way of fun.  But it was nice to be able to visit with them.

We are currently in our "Christmas School" mode.  We have a more laid back schedule for the holiday season with more of a focus on Advent.

For Bible we are reading the Jotham's Journey devotional.  I just LOVE this series!  We look forward to it every day.  It's been a bit of a challenge this week because I've had a terrible cough and can barely talk but we plug away. LOL

We've dropped our normal social studies, Sonlight Core F, for the moment.  Since we couldn't get a refund from Winter Promise, I decided to use all of those Christmas books that I had sitting on the shelf.  I debated about whether or not to use their schedule or create my own.  Due, in large part, to my laziness I decided to use theirs.  I also thought it would be a hoot to see how what "gems" they had in store for us.

There's not too much to report about it actually.  It turns out they didn't go too deep into their Christmas around the world unit.  (Shocking, I know. LOL)  This week we "studied" China, Japan, Russia and the Ukraine.  Studying consisted of about a paragraph or two about each country and our choice of crafts from the book.  I guess that fits perfectly with our laid back Christmas mindset though. LOL  But we find ourselves wanting to know more so we spent some time scouring the internet because WP didn't really recommend any additional material for digging deeper.  

I do have one WP funny.  We're reading a book filled with Christmas Classics and our first assignment was interesting.  Not!  We had to read the introduction.  The introduction was 3 incredibly boring pages about how the stories were chosen.  Why we had to read that instead of a story, I'll never know.  But hey they once suggested I read a list of country names instead of the interesting facts about the countries.  I don't claim to understand a thing about this company.

So this week we made a Chinese pagoda nativity (pictured), a Japanese fan, and we are going to make a Russian fabric ornament but hit a snag with supplies.  So we'll get to it on Monday, I guess.

As far as other subjects, I've been picking and choosing.  We did math, Writing With Skill, science, and spelling.  Math will remain constant but I'll switching out the other subjects according to my whims.  =o)

We had some awesome progress on Writing With Skill.  It's meant for the student  to work fairly independently but Mackenzie has been quite needy in the "hand-holding" to complete the assignments.  But this week she had a breakthrough and she did all 4 assignments without any help!  And she even said that one of them was a lot of fun.  Woot!!!

We are going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever next week, so that has been her reader.  We are looking forward to that.  And we'll probably watch the movie too so we can compare performances.

And that is pretty much our week.  Check out other Wrap-Ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With A Video

 Ahhh, a blessed week without a lot of happenings.  We were able to hit the books full force.  I was happy about that even if Mackenzie wasn't.

This week we were studying New Zealand.  I was this close to going there while we were in Guam but we never made it. Bummer!  My uncle lives there though so we get to see some beautiful pictures.

White Island off the coast of NZ.  How lucky is my uncle? He took took it from a helicopter.

For Mackenzie's Choose Your Own Adventure she is supposed to be making a dessert called Pavlova, named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.  There is some dispute as to whether is was created by the Aussies or the Kiwi's but most formal research gives it to New Zealand.

Unfortunately she hasn't made it yet because it isn't the best season for fresh fruit so we're waiting for our kiwi to ripen so she can make it..

She finished her reader, Red Sands, Blue Sky, a week early so I told her to grab one of the books from winter promise core off the shelf and read that.  She choose Real Kids, Real Change and it was pretty good. (Naturally it was NOT written by WP. lol)   It is about 30 children who faced some extraordinary obstacles and accomplished amazing things.  Mackenzie highly recommends it.  

For our read aloud we started The Puppet Master.  Mackenzie freaked out a bit because "we're not studying Japan right now."  A winter promise flashback it seems. LOL  I told her that we're starting our study on Japan next week.  It's not like WP, who schedules books about Africa while studying Switzerland and then, 20 weeks later, schedules books about Switzerland while studying Africa.  Overlap is fine with me.  Utter nonsense, not so much.  

We finished out last week of Math Mammoth.  You can read my review HERE.  Mackenzie is very glad to be going back to Math-U-See.  I might get 3 minutes with no math complaints next week. Woo-hoo!!!

In science, we finished out study on the digestive system.  We are plugging in language arts as well.  Writing is definitely not her favorite subject but Writing With Skill is helping her improve despite her lack of love for the subject.   Spelling Workout is also working out well for us.  It's nice and simple and gets the job done.

I finally got to see the art project she's been working on since September.  Her instructor hung them up for all of us to admire.  There she is with her coat-of-arms.  I loved what she chose to represent her: ice cream, music notes, artist's paints, cross, peace signs and field hockey sticks.  Last time I asked her about playing field hockey she said no thanks. lol

It was a great day at Young Musicians of Virginia that day.  Not only did I get to see her art, I got to come to her piano class for a little show.  Her she is playing Let's Sing Praise with her teacher.  She LOVES when she gets to play duets.

We ended the week with lunch with our favorite veteran, my honey, and our friends.  Then we let daddy go home and nap while we went to the local children's museum.  Note to self: Never again go to a museum when the public schools are out.  Never again!  What were we thinking? lol

And that was our week. Pop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see more homeschool happenings.

Also, if you're interested in trying your hand at digital scrapbooking, check out my giveaway.  A complete edition of My Memories Photo Suite.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Another 2-for-1 Week

Last week  just got away from me and I never got around to blogging.  I hate weeks like that.  So this week I’ll try to remember what we did last week too.  Maybe.  My memory isn’t what it used to be. Or even close.
The biggest excitement was that my hubby came back from Germany last week.  Woot!  Part of my busy-ness was getting the house ready.

Social Studies

We’ve been studying Australia for the last few weeks.  We liked it so much that we extended it a week.  We went to Australia in 2006 so we have quite a few resources.  Plus, some stuff from our winter promise debacle. 
For her Choose Your Own Adventure, in Sonlight’s Eastern Hemisphere Explorer, Mackenzie decided to try her hand at Aboriginal style painting.

She wrote a mini-report about echidna’s, which I was going to share, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.  So I’ll leave you with a picture I took in Australia.  I think that they’re cute, little egg-laying mammals.

And while I’m at it, here’s a koala, kanga, and a shot from an Aboriginal village.  Look at how little Mackenzie was.  She grew to fast.
 

As our grand finale, she made lamingtons.  They are traditional Aussie cakes drizzled in chocolate and coconut.  They were pretty tasty but I think the frosting recipe needed to be tripled.  I like full coverage. lol


Next week, we’re on to New Zealand.  I have an uncle who lives there so I’m excited.  I wish I could’ve gone.

Language Arts

We’ve switched up our spelling.  We were doing it online through Big IQ kids.  However, since it was computer based and took a little longer, it was one of the first things that got pushed aside when life got hectic.  So I just bought Spelling Workout and, while not that exciting, it’s been working fine and we can take it on the road which is handy.

Advanced Language Lessons and Writing With Skill continue to be wonderful.  WWS has got her writing narratives now and, while she hates the writing, how love how it teaches the subject matter.  Love, love, love!
For “fun”, we pulled out Winter Promise’s Children of Many Lands and read the Australia sections for editing practice.  It did not disappoint,  she found errors on every page. 

Math

…is going.  Since we’re currently reviewing a new math product, that’s all I’m going to say.

Science

We finished up the digestive system this week.  We were supposed to finish it last week but we never actually got around to science.

She made a little digestion comic strip.

We did a little experiment on the importance of bile.  Our dish soap “bile” broke up our cooking oil “fat.”  The way God designed our bodies is just amazing!

Other Stuff

We are continuing to laugh our way through Visual Latin.  The last two weeks we’ve covered numbers 1-10 and present tense verbs.  We’re really starting to be able to understand the spoken language despite the fact that we don’t have to spend time memorizing vocab.  It’s so cool!
We studied Mozart and Beethoven for our composer study.  What’s not to love about them?  While my hubby was in Germany, he took a side trip to Austria and saw where Mozart grew up.  He got some pictures for us but I haven’t had a chance to look at them.  I think they’ll get a special blog post.
Mackenzie got her first ever report card.  From her art class.  lol  She got an S+ because nobody’s allowed to get an O during the first quarter.  I’ll take her teacher’s word for it because I haven’t seen any of their work yet.  The teacher is keeping it hidden.  Boo!!!
Piano is still her passion.  She loves, loves, loves it and is really excelling with her private lessons.  It’s just amazing how much progress she’s making.   Next week I’m supposed to go to class with her because her and her (super, wonderful, amazing) teacher have a surprise for me.  I can’t wait!!!
Soccer ends tomorrow.  I’m actually glad because most of her games have been at 8:30.  A.M.  Ugh!!!  She missed a couple of weeks because she sprained her foot but she’s ready for the last game.
One would think that we’d have some free time with soccer ending.  Not so much.  She got a part in our churches Christmas play.  She was really worried that she wouldn’t get a part but I had no doubts.  It’s drama 24/7 with her.  E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G!!!   I hope the play will channel some of the drama.  lol
And here’s your parting shot of my ‘lil Jessie cowgirl and my beautiful Renaissance princess.

Pop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been doing. 


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