I just lost my ENTIRE post

 I am SO frustrated right now!!!  Thankfully I copied and pasted this to an email right before I hit publish.  I am out of time to see if the spacing is correct, I hope it is, either way, here is my post:

I sat down here to post yesterday, but then got called away...repeatedly.  So last night I set an alarm on my phone to write today and here I am with about five minutes to spare...

Yesterday we finished The Wolf Princess.  Oh my...this is such a LOVELY book.  I was so wrapped up in this story that one day, earlier this week, we paused so I could fix dinner and I was momentarily stunned to find myself in my own home having to fend for myself instead of being tucked away in a Russian palace, deep in snowy woods.  After reading this book, I want to learn to speak Russian and immerse myself in the rich, deep history of the Russian revolutions.  I want to know Sophie and Ivan in real life.  This is one of those rare gems that you just absolutely will cherish the memory of listening to the story and trying to unravel the mystery.  Some days, we would get in our car and drive around town just so we could listen to it over the speakers.  There was something so enchanting about being tucked into a smallish space and having Beth Kent's voice surround you. (the story is written by Cathryn Constable but we listened to the version narrated by Beth Kent).  Alas, I truly feel like I bid some very good friends goodbye as we turned off the speakers late yesterday.  There was a moment of clapping, and of exclamations of what a good story that was, but ultimately there was silence.  The realization that today would come and we would not be in such a hurry to finish Science or History so we could get to the good stuff.  😍

I am trying a new idea for lesson planning this year.  I had some Moleskine notebooks (the extra large, soft papery type of covers).  I watched a video on creating your own prayer notebook and decided to give it a go with the notebooks I already had, but also decided to make one for my lesson planning.  I glue sprayed the front of the Moleskine and used thick scrapbook paper to cover it.  I used a tab punch to make my tabs (using the scrapbook paper for this too and my label maker) and taped them on, but the best part?  I googled ideas for making your own lesson planners and found a teacher that thought of the BRILLIANT idea of using washi tape to created the grids for writing your plans in them.  I had the BEST time prepping this book and already have ideas for my next one.  Here are some sample pictures before I filled in all of the squares.  I date them when they are completed and color in the squares lightly with different colored pencils as we complete them.  The dates are to match with our file folders for the week if I need to pull out samples for appointments,  but the colors are for being able to see with a quick glance where I am in our quest, but also because it's pretty :).

For our read alouds, I draw boxes and number each box for the number of chapters in the book, then I shade them in as we read them so if I lose my bookmark (happens a LOT), I know right where to pick up with the story without having to thumb through and figure it out.  I also on the backside of the page list all of the audiobooks we have going and jot down a date under it for every time we listen.  If it's longer than 15 or 20 minutes of listening, I count it as a day of listening.  However, if it is shorter than 15 or 20 minutes, I do not count it, unless we do that several times in one day and it adds us to equal 15-20 minutes.