Officially Fifth Grade

(I meant to post this yesterday, but got busy and forgot about it)

We officially started Fifth Grade Monday--it didn't happen last week because I was just too sick. I am still coughing, but am enough better that it wasn't an impossibility like it was last week.

We decided to put off beginning Latin until at least next week, if not a little longer. This gives us a chance to get into the curriculum and develop a routine before heading into strange, new waters.. It is probably a good thing we did too--We took from 9-5 to get through yesterdays schedule. A big part of the problem was getting her back on track after lunch. Right now I am thinking that when she grows up, she is going to be a master of the three martini lunch! We broke for lunch at 12:30, and it was 2:30 before I could get her back to work for more than a moment at a time instead of dancing, twirling, and working at stretching her leg up over her head.

Speaking of legs, I called last night and got her dance scheduled for this year. I screwed up and didn't call early enough, so she can't get separate jazz and ballet classes, she has to do a combo, but she does have tap and musical theatre. I don't particularly like the time and day slots, but it is my own damn fault so I am just going to suck it up. They put her on a wait list for Hip-Hop, and even though I don't like the idea of my 1 yr old moving like that, her dance teachers think she needs it as it is becoming a more standard style in much of musical theatre, Oh well, the child has nothing to shake or thrust, so it shouldn''t be too bad. The child has decided that she wants to study gymnastics and fencing too. Fencing isn't going to work this year, because the beginner lessons at the local fencing club overlap her musical theatre class, so that can be put off for at least a year, and with the summer Olympics just ending, there is going to be no chance of getting her into a gymnastics class. Her dance teachers would like to see her go to a circus school in a few years and learn there because they can teach her gymnastics and the wire work she wants to learn.

I guess the math I chose for this year, Life of Fred, is a hit. At 1:30 this morning when I came downstairs to take something for pain, I found her at the dining room table working on math and giggling. She really likes the fact that she has an answer key that shows the working of the problem so she can figure out where she went wrong if she didn't get the right answer. I was kind of concerned that the answers were in the book, but she has already figured out how to use them appropriately. I am really looking forward to seeing her love of math come back, and I think Fred will do that for her.