Five Things that I Thought Would Be Our Favorites

It's January...oh, January!  Even though the snow hasn't made an appearance here, yet, it is still the doldrums of winter schooling.  Why is January so hard?  Every year I resolve that it won't be, but it always is.

As I am thinking of how our year is about half over, and starting to look ahead to next year.  I thought I would share the five things I planned that I thought would be our favorites but aren't.  Just being honest here!

1

Twin Sister Productions

I thought that these cassettes with catchy tunes would be all the rage.  However, instead of effortlessly learning amazing facts by  heart with easy, my children were just annoyed by the hokey toe-tapping songs.  I'm not saying these are bad, I'm just saying that they didn't work for our family.

2

Free Download Audiobooks

Okay, so maybe this doesn't belong on this list because the only reason they aren't our favorite is because we haven't been able to get them to work.  I have an MP3 player and set of speakers but try as I might, can't get the book to download.  So, I tried my Kindle, it has an audiobook tab after all.  Same problem!  I read that there is an app for Libravox (remember when things just worked and didn't need a special app?  Yeah, me, too!) However, every time I try to download it, it says it is sold out and will be back in stock soon???!!!??? (Shakes head)

Sigh, so we just unearthed the ipod from the boxes that remain to be unpacked, and I am going to try again.  Before you think all is lost in the car, we have been really enjoying the Music Masters Cd's and some audiobooks from the library.

3

Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura

You would think that a boy who thinks about Almanzo Wilder day and night and will do anything to get to watch something, anything on television would be wild about a documentary of the Almanzo's life.  Sadly, he wasn't.  It is well done but he said that he wished there were actual people acting out the history instead of a narrator just explaining what happened in each place.  You can't win them all.  I still think we learned something, but once was enough.

4

The United States Cookbook 

 

This is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me".  This is a wonderful cookbook, but with so many food restrictions in our family, it seems impossible to use, even though I thought I could adapt it.  When we first tried it, there were several less dietary restrictions and I still had to skip recipes.  I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to do this again...oh, wait, I remember, it was those beautiful pictures of Jessica's lovely daughter cooking up the most scrumptious treats and learning about the states at the same time.  LOL.  I thought I could somehow capture the same spirit even if we had to eliminate at least 3 major food categories and members of a couple more.  Oh, well.  There are greater problems in the world for sure and I truly enjoyed traveling across the USA vicariously via blog posts with Jessica's beautiful, young ladies.  I have decided instead to just pick a recipe from each region and make it together.  Finding 5-6 recipes and adapting them is much more manageable than doing 50!  Best laid plans, right?

5

 Call to Celebrate Reconciliation

 

This book looked great when I first picked it up, but once we started to use it I just didn't like it at all.  It seemed kind of scattered and the lessons varied from above a second grader's head to just plain filler.  I tried adapting it and only doing part but the more I went through it the less I liked it.  It was quickly dropped, but our First Confession preparation was not harmed in the least.

As they say, you live and learn.  I am happy to see, as I revisited our original plans to see what I had altered along the way, that we are in better shape than I was fearing.  We have tackled a lot of what we set out to do.  We still have work to do, but that is what snow days are for.  Fortunately, my children don't know about lazy snow days when there's nothing to do but play in the snow and drink hot cocoa.  :)

How is your year going?  Any changes you've had to make?  New discoveries you wish to share?  Thanks for stopping by.

Linking up with Ashley for #FiveFavs