What’s New for Us This School Year

We’re doing a lot of new things this school year!

First of all, I’m so excited to serve in the Children’s Program at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). If you don’t know anything about BSF, here’s a link to their website. What I appreciate the most about studying the Bible through BSF is their emphasis on interpreting Scripture with Scripture. In the Children’s Program, even the young kids memorize a Bible verse each week and sing hymns together. I love teaching children about the Bible, and I pray that teaching through BSF helps me grow as both a teacher and a Christian woman, all to God’s glory! Samuel and Ruthie are both part of the Children’s Program, so we get to participate together each week.

Our Classical Conversations (CC) community is moving to a new location, and a new student is joining my class. My new classroom has round tables, which I really like. I can see each student as I teach, and they can see each other. I think this makes for more interaction between students and better classroom management overall. Welcoming a new student to class is always fun. I tutor an incredibly kind and thoughtful group of students, and I know they’ll do their best to make her feel like part of our community. We have a nice rhythm in our classroom, with lots of interesting discussions and creative ideas. Hearing the thoughts of someone new will be so enjoyable and helpful.

Next, reading! Reading, reading, and more reading. I need to teach Samuel how to read. We’re using Spell to Write and Read, like many other families in our homeschool community. Samuel’s vocabulary is impressive and he enjoys listening to stories and telling stories, so I think he’ll like reading once we get going. And potty training! That’s what’s coming this school year for Ruthie.

I’m also excited to teach piano lessons for a couple young students from our CC community. Even though I’ve played piano for a long time, teaching piano will be completely new to me. I’m going to concentrate on the basics for the first few lessons, such as hand position and posture, and then move on to Alfred’s Basic Piano Library, which I used as a piano student. I view these lessons somewhat as practice lessons for when I start teaching Samuel how to play. He insists that he wants to learn to play the drums, and learning to play piano first will give him the music theory skills he needs to master a different instrument. I plan to buy him a quiet drum pad to practice on at home for fun until he’s ready for a big set!

Finally, I’m learning how to play the ukulele! Here’s me, with my Makala concert ukulele.

So far, I’ve successfully tuned my ukulele and tried to play a C chord and an A minor chord. I start lessons on Saturday. I hope writing music is a little easier on the ukulele than on the piano. The ukulele only has four strings, which I think makes the ukulele less challenging to play than other stringed instruments. I understand the basics of music theory, so I’ll mostly have to learn the technique to playing a ukulele well. I put lots of Bible verses to tunes I write, and my hope is that I can eventually put those tunes to the cheery music of the ukulele.

The kids seem interested in learning to play, too. We can form a family band! Stay tuned for that ;).

Are you doing anything new this school year?