Old McWrite has some Vowels!

Vowels are TRICKY! Understanding them and how they work is one of the most important tasks of an emergent reader. As Joy has learned the letters over the past three years, I have always pointed out whether the letter is a vowel or a consonant. Not that I expected her to remember, but that she knew there were such things.

One day, as Joy and I were belting out songs in the car, I realized that "Old McDonald Has a Farm" and its "E-I-E-I-O" could easily be modified to be about the vowels. So I made up a new version, which goes like this:
                         Old McWrite had some vowels
                         A-E-I-O-U
                         And with these vowels he made some words
                         A-E-I-O-U
                         With a vowel-vowel here
                         And a vowel-vowel there
                         Here a vowel
                         There a vowel
                         Everywhere a vowel, vowel
                         Old McWrite had some vowels
                         A-E-I-O-U

Joy learned the song immediately and has been singing it for the past year and a half. Which has made teaching her to read much easier! As she's learned sounds, I can point out that the vowels make more than one sound. Most the consonants make only one, occasionally two. It's made teaching her some of the early rules of phonics easier: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking, and says its own name."  Can't make much sense out of that without knowing what vowels are!

Today, Joy and I took a bunch of Scrabble tiles and spread them out on the table. Then I helped Joy pick out all the vowels. Once we had all the vowels out of the bunch, I chose a beginning and an ending consonant. I chose them based on which consonants would make lots of words with various vowels in the middle.

After setting up the consonants, I had Joy move one vowel of her choice to the middle of the word. Then she sounded out the word. This reinforced the short vowel sounds, but also left open the possibility of an irregular pattern. I believe it's important to let children see the words that don't fit the patterns, too, so they know that the patterns aren't written in stone.

So Joy built a whole bunch of words using the tiles. I think I set up three consonant patterns, including t_n, s_t, and b_nk, which made bank, benk, bink, bonk, and bunk. The nonsense words are just fine, although I point out that they're nonsense. If Joy didn't know what bunk means, I would tell her, just to build her vocabulary. (I wouldn't expect her to memorize the meaning or anything, but I would just describe what a bunk is and remind of her bunks she might have seen.)

A fun song and a quick activity to use with your emergent reader. Have fun today!!!

Our Decision

My husband and I spent lots of time last evening discussing whether we should send Joy to the public Montessori school or keep homeschooling her. We talked with Joy and explained the decision we had to make. We asked her for input, but told her it was our decision. We listed the pros and cons of each. We prayed together, asking for guidance in the decision. We came to the understanding that Joy would probably thrive in either setting.

So what did we decide? We're going to homeschool.

It came down to what would help Joy continue to gain security, stability, academic progress, and character. See, Joy has had many changes in her young life; too many. She has absolutely thrived in the year+ that I have stayed home with her. A little more than a year ago, Joy was having multiple daily melt-downs, usually triggered by trying to fit "too much" into her day. These days, Joy goes days without a melt-down, as long as we don't try to cram too many scheduled things into her time. So, choosing to go to school would mean stopping most of her other activities: gymnastics, church youth group, piano, volunteering to help with MOPS at our church. Without school, these things are simply a part of our life, but in addition to school, they would be way too much!

Joy herself showed a bit of insight about this when we talked with her about the choices (before we made a decision). She said, "How long is school?" When I explained, she thought for a while and said, "Maybe it's too long." In considering where Joy would get the most benefit, it was clear to us that our current activities are ideal for her.

I spent some time researching the Montessori school yesterday, of course. One of the factors in our decision was their list of "Essential Outcomes for Kindergarten." Now, I know that the essential outcomes are the bare minimum expected, but there were none of these essential outcomes that Joy cannot already do! I know that the teachers would encourage her to continue her learning, but I also know that Joy doesn't like to try difficult things, so I could easily see her playing around all year. I don't want that to happen! The teachers will be focused on those students who haven't met the essential outcomes due to the pressures they receive about kids passing tests.

This morning, when we told Joy that we were going to continue to homeschool, she was quiet for a moment. Then she started listing all the things that she was going to continue to do: Y Kids' Care, gymnastics, etc. And she said, "Okay" and went on with her breakfast with a smile.

Good decision.

A Dilemma

We have a serious dilemma on our hands today. You all know how much I've loved homeschooling Joy, and how successful it's been for her. And how she is strong-willed and self-directed.

Well, the public choice school that we tried to get her into, a Montessori school, called today to say they have an opening. Did we want to send Joy? Um.....NO.  Um.... YES. YIKES!

We love what our family is doing right now, but we know Joy would also love spending more time with a group of kids. We know that we are still in the process of leaving our town eventually, and fewer transitions might be a good thing, so homeschooling makes sense.

Our original decision in applying for the Montessori school was that the teaching style fits Joy's learning style. She would have some choice in how her time is spent, some control over her day. Plus, since it's a public school, it wouldn't be prohibitive tuition-wise. When she was denied entrance, homeschooling was the choice we made.

But if we send her to the Montessori school, she will still get plenty of mom-time because it's a half-day program. Joy would automatically be accepted into the Montessori program next year (and following years), which, if we're here, would be a better placement for her than the local public school.

I realize that part of my reluctance to send Joy to public school kindergarten is my own sense of purpose and fun in homeschooling her. That's a bad reason to homeschool, though. I will enjoy having a bit of time to work on my glass art, and I will still have a half day with Joy, if we send her to school.

Argh! I wish I knew the "Right" answer... except perhaps there isn't one. Perhaps Joy will thrive and succeed in learning in either environment. I know that my husband and I will pray over this decision, and make the best decision we can with the information we have on hand. Watch for the next blog entry to find out what we decide.

How 'Bout Some FUN?

I have to confess that I am LOVING the freedom of homeschooling. Our schedule is delightful! Joy and I can take a field trip on a whim, make "school" out of moving the kindergarten stuff to a new room, or have a shaving cream party in our yard!

That's just what we did yesterday. A couple of weeks ago, I had provided Joy and her best friend some shaving cream, and they played with it. They had a great time, but I thought of lots of possiblities for foamy fun. So I planned a Shaving Cream Party. Kind of like our Mud Party, only cleaner.  And boy, was it fun!!!

The kids slid and slipped and danced and fell and surfed and belly-flopped in the shaving cream. They giggled and chuckled and outright squealed with delight in the slippery fun. They covered themselves (and each other!) in shaving cream, clapped their hands and sprayed cream everywhere, and they added the big plastic political signs (from about 10 years ago; they were stored in our barn!) to make the slide longer.

It was great fun! I wouldn't trade that afternoon for much of anything in this world. It was one of the joys of homeschooling: The freedom to pursue silliness with abandon. I'm certain that's not in any educational standards or benchmarks! But was it educational??

Hmmmmmm...... Here are some of the things that convince me that Joy was learning yesterday, amidst her fun:
1) She helped plan the party! In other words, she counted cups, popcicles, figured out what we might want out besides shaving cream, and generally prepared for the guests;
2) She realized very quickly that the political signs added lots of fun, but should be overlapped. We all learned that they should all be overlapped the same direction to avoid small gouges in knees and ankles! And
3) Joy learned that meeting new people and including them was a positive thing. She hadn't met one of the families that participated before, and she was a little leery of having new kids, but she absolutely loved  the slightly older girls that helped spray the shaving cream and then slid with as much enthusiasm as the smaller kids. She said to me afterward, "Can we invite _______ again?? I wish they had come to the Mud Party!"

I'm sure she learned much about balance and slipperiness and more, but the most important thing that happened was the pure bliss of doing something goofy and enjoying it so thoroughly!  I loved it, too.

Games and Graphs

I know I've said before that playing games is a terrific way to build education into your child's day. We play lots of silly games with dice, including "Roll Two, Add and Compare," "Order the Dice," and today's game, "Graphing Dice." In "Roll Two," each player simply rolls two dice, each adds their dice, and the winner is the one with the highest number. Obviously, you could adapt this in many ways, including playing a cooperative version where each player rolls two dice, adds them, and then all players add the dice together for a grand total. All players win when the grand total is higher than the target you set.

"Graphing Dice" starts with a handful of dice. The child throws the dice, with help as needed. The more dice, the more fun! We only used regular (1-6) dice today; I have dice with up to 20 sides, which would increase the challenge of the activity.

The child then orders the dice (which is basically the game of "Order the Dice"), as shown on left. We are working on ordering the dice from least to greatest, but it would also work greatest to least. Once the ordering is done, it's time to make the graph!

Because this is Joy's first experience with formal graphing (Besides Sid the Science Kid), I drew the x-axis and y-axis and labeled the graph. As an introduction, though, I used the correct terminology as I created the graph: "Joy, I'm drawing the x-axis for our graph. That's the side-to-side line! The up-and-down one is called the y-axis. I made a title for our graph; it's called 'Dice Throw.' And I'm labeling the x-axis with the numbers on the dice." Enabling your child(ren) to understand the academic vocabulary is very important! Use those words you know; your kids will learn them, and they'll learn when they need to ask for an explanation.

Joy watched me count and fill in the bars for the first two numbers. Then she counted and filled in the others. Note that I put the pips in the same shape as on a die as a clue for Joy! I want kids' experiences to be successful! I would've filled in more bars if needed; it's all guided by what the child needs.

We actually played this twice because Joy was so interested in it. This was during our sit-down school time. I drew the second graph, but she ordered, counted, and graphed the dice. I used more vocabulary the second time, mentioning that the mode was three since she had the most threes. I also identified the maximum (6) and the minimum (1). Later, Joy will tell her dad about the activity, and I'll encourage her to use the words, if possible. If she can't, I will! More exposures = More understanding!

The other extension I did today since Joy was so positive about this activity was comparing the two graphs. This is a pretty advanced skill, but Joy did a great job! She noticed that the number of 5s stayed the same, and that the mode was 2 in the first throw and 3 in the second throw. And yes, she used the word mode! It was a lot of fun, and so easy to set up and do. Get those dice out... and THROW!!!

Puffins and Projects

 This is a poem (Oh, There Once Was a Puffin by Florence Jaques) that I memorized a long, long time ago. It came up on our vacation, when we went on a puffin adventure boat. We got to go out to a puffin island and see puffins! Because we were going to do that, I recited this poem a couple of times, just because I'm goofy, I guess. Joy listened to it and laughed at the puffins eating pancakes (one of her favorite foods). Then she asked if I would teach her the poem. I NEVER turn down a chance to have her learn anything, so I said, "Sure!"

Within a couple of days, she had memorized the poem and was reciting it endlessly. I knew the day would come when I would use the poem for instruction. I made a copy (left) of the poem and had Joy read it for school. Then we found the rhyming patterns (colored highlighting and boxes). We also examined the rhythms of the stanzas.

Then last week Joy blurted out, "I want to make a movie!" In discussing the movie, I suggested that she make a movie of the puffin poem, and she loved the idea. So we began making puppets. We found pictures on the internet. I did most of the cutting on the puffin because Joy was not feeling brave enough to tackle it.

She did most of the cutting on the fishes, though! I drew the shape on the first two, but then she designed them herself.

 Of course, we were reading about puffins from the internet (I even got a chance to discuss which sources were more credible, comparing National Geographic with Wikipedia!) and from library books. Joy wrote about puffins in her "letters" to Mom and Dad. She writes these spontaneously all the time. The one on the right says, "I like puffins. They are fun! From Luv Joy"

We tie-dyed fabric for backdrops, which turned out fabulously! Then we put together our "stage" from a side-turned card table and our backdrops. We built an island with a box and markers.

We videotaped five "takes" and used flipshare to edit the best of each of the six stanzas together. It turned out GREAT!

Joy had a super time doing all this, and she learned so many things! She memorized, recited with expression, planned and created art, researched puffins online and in books, and wrote about the puffins and the process. Stealth Kindergarten at its best!

The Joy of Literacy

I've been asked a few questions about teaching literacy. Let me start by saying that I was a Reading Specialist in the public schools for more than a decade of my teaching experience. For me, literacy is embedded in everything! But today, I'll take a quick tour of some of the literacy activities Joy and I have been working on lately.

Prior to a trip to the zoo a couple of months ago, I read this book on bears (to left) to Joy. She loves to be read to, and I read non-fiction as often as fiction. Joy has learned to discern which is which and can tell me that we read non-fiction to get information.

Because Joy was interested in the bear book, I looked for a book at a very easy level for Joy to read aloud to me. I found Bears and Their Cubs, by Linda Tagliaferro. It took Joy about 2 weeks to read it all because I have her read from the beginning and add just one new page each day. Each page has only 1-2 sentences on it, using only 113 different words in the whole book. After learning to read the whole book, I have had her read it about once a week during our "sit-down" school time.

When reading non-fiction, I point out the non-fiction text features to Joy. For example, the table of contents, glossary, and index are all common features in non-fiction. So are captions, photographic illustrations, and headings. By talking about these regularly, Joy is learning to discern what her purpose should be in reading the book. That's very important to becoming a good reader!

Last week, we went to the zoo again! Because of her background knowledge on bears, Joy was very interested in the bear exhibit. And to make it even more exciting, this bear (right) swam in front of Joy and her friend for several minutes. Joy got out her Zoo Sketchbook (a blank book with "Joy at the Zoo" on the cover) and drew the bear. I encouraged her to look closely at the bear's fur and feet, which you can clearly see in her drawing. She wrote "bare" (forgot the line on the a and wrote the e wacky) at the zoo.

The next day, during "sit-down" school time, she wrote this sentence about the bear at the zoo:

The translation is: He swam in the water.  The whole "bear" theme has been going on for a couple of months, and I will continue to use Joy's interest in bears to develop her literacy skills (reading and writing are both important literacy skills and develop in tandem at this early stage, especially).

We do more, though! Joy is working on her sight vocabulary, too. You  know, those words that everyone has to learn how to read. Some of them are NOT phonetic, which means they have to be learned by sight only. Others are just so common that kids need to know them automatically, not by sounding them out. This means, basically, that you have to practice these words... not much fun, right?

 

WRONG! Joy practices with her remote control car...

And with a silly little puppet we call "Sluggy" (after some slugs we found on vacation)!

Sluggy "reads" the words when Joy is holding her. I act all upset when she gets them correct because she's "stealing all my stickers" (which I put on the back when Joy reads them correctly).

When I have Sluggy, Joy holds the words up and Sluggy acts like she doesn't know the harder words... and finally Joy helps her. The easy words, Sluggy just says them correctly and then Joy gets to bemoan giving Sluggy a sticker!  It's all quite silly, which, of course, five year olds love!

Let the silliness begin!

JoyLand

This is JoyLand... and lots of fun! Joy and I started making JoyLand about a month ago with Play Doh. I had LOTS of Play Doh left from my teaching days, when I would use it to help kids remember things. For example, when we learned about the brain, I would have students model neurons, hemispheres, etc. while I presented the material.

Anyway, I got all the Play Doh out and told Joy we were going to make JoyLand, her OWN country! So we started forming mountains, valleys, mesas, oceans, plateaus, rivers, peninsulas, etc. She did NOT know what all of these were, of course! She has done some traveling, so she knew the basic mountains and valleys. We used to live by a ravine, so she knew that one. But many of the land and water forms were named by me, using the correct geographical names.

When we came back from vacation, JoyLand was all dried up and cracked apart. It was unusable... so we threw it away and started over with Crayola's Model Magic. We also built JoyLand on a plastic tray, so it would stay together better and be portable. MUCH better idea! :)

After the Model Magic dried, we painted everything, using glitter paint. Joy wanted JoyLand to sparkle! There was some negotiating about what was land and what was water until Joy finally realized that the lowest places had to be water. (That's a great learning to have in place!)


It was a project we did together, so I was able to paint in some rivers and lakes and to make sure we had a desert plateau. Joy wanted pink and purple mountains and  a purple mesa. In the process of discussing what we were painting, mesa became such a familiar word that she said a large plastic, flat-topped electrical plug was shaped like a mesa!

As we painted, we talked about the different land and water forms. I wasn't trying to get Joy to know them all! I just want her to hear their names and begin looking at the various forms. After the paint was dry, we are using it to play with Squinkies...

The Squinkies meet on top of the mesa, or slide down the tributaries into the main river and then the delta. They chase each other through the desert or hop across the islands. Joy loves it that I'm playing with her, and I love it that we're using vocabulary that will make geography easier for her as she advances in school!

Future plans for JoyLand include: Lots of  Squinkie play, making a map of JoyLand, adding on to JoyLand, and who knows where Joy's interests will lead!!

BTW, you don't have to go totally crazy, with a permanent "land" for your child, to work in landforms and water forms. As you explore your yard or neighborhood or vacation location, name the landforms and water forms you see. Use the words creek, brook, river, stream to describe various flowing waters. Talk about the shapes of various hills, mesas, mountains, etc. It's just a matter of fitting the academic language into your normal conversation! Have fun!

Storytelling Steps

One of the best stealth learning "tricks" I know is to play games with kids. There are myriad games that are excellent, and playing ANY game with a child is beneficial for them in many ways: learning to take turns, count correctly, win and lose gracefully, learning colors, numbers, and anything else the game holds. Joy loves to play games, and we play them with her often. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a small game to take with us on our vacation, something we could play in the airplane (few pieces to get lost!).

Tell Tale by Blue Orange is what I found, and it is a FUN game packed into a small container! Joy LOVES it, and we continue to play it almost every day. It's such a simple concept, you could easily make it at home if you didn't want to pay for the packaged version. It has a bunch of small cards that have pictures on them... Pictures of people (and monsters and critters), places, and intriguing props for the telling of stories. You could just cut pictures from magazines and get the same kind of materials for storytelling!

You simply take out a number of random cards (we usually use 5 or 6), put them in any order you want, and tell a story about the pictures! It's so easy, a very young child could do it. But it's so intriguing, it makes adults want to tell stories, too!

Joy wants us to play this game with her constantly. What she doesn't know is that by telling stories and hearing stories, she is learning the art of writing! I do not turn this into a lecture, but after playing for a couple of weeks now, I started pointing out some very basic writing concepts, like:

A) My main character stays the main character throughout the whole story;

B) There is a problem in my story, and by the end of the story, the problem is solved somehow; and

C) The story usually goes in chronological (time) order.



We're not writing these stories down! These are just oral stories so far, but someday I expect that we'll begin writing some of them down. I could certainly envision Joy dictating a story for me to type, even now. There is no testable goal at this time, either. We're simply building the framework for reading and writing fiction stories by talking about the stories. There is no special vocabulary or any secret formula; Simply engage your child in creating and talking about stories.

Don't expect your child's stories to keep the same main character, have a coherent problem, go in chronological order, or even to make sense at first! Their skill will develop as they experience your stories and their stories and authors' stories.  And just like Joy IS a scientist when we do science, she IS an author when she makes up stories. Giving your child the title as they begin to explore a subject empowers them to take risks and ACT like an author (or a scientist, or a mathematician).

Would You Like Tea or Coffee?

One of the funniest results of our recent vacation to the UK is Joy's attraction to the various accents people have. We stayed in Scotland the longest, and she was drawn to our breakfast server's way of saying, "Would you like some tea or coffee?" Every morning, the same question. By the third day, Joy was asking us all day long, "Would you like some tea or coffee?" with the server's accent. It was hilarious! (Slightly embarrassing when she did it in public, but funny anyway.)


Joy had a small notebook with her on vacation, and she began to "take orders" from us and write them down. Here was an early version; it says, "coffee, tea." Later, we started ordering foods and she would write them down. I fell in love with sticky toffee pudding, a traditional English dessert. Here's Joy's rendition of that: 

We've done lots of writing at home, including this easel upon which we write notes to one another several times per day. This particular day's notes were mostly about Joy's dad's birthday!

I wanted to extend Joy's writing of orders, so when we returned home from our trip and settled back into a routine this week, I asked her to write down her lunch order so the cook could make it up for her. She has thoughtfully considered and written her order with zeal each day. She thinks it's hilarious that I take it for "the cook" to make her lunch.

Today's lunch order was "Peanut Butter and Jelly, milk." The secret to keeping it fun for Joy is that I don't correct her "errors." At all. Over the past few days I've noticed that she's spelling milk correctly, except she's putting an e instead of an i. So today when she ordered, I said, "By the way, milk has only one vowel in it: an i!"  She spelled it with an e again anyway, but I'll try again tomorrow. Eventually, she'll see it written correctly enough or hear me, and she'll fix her spelling to the standard spelling.

That's another important point: When I do give or ask her to give the "correct" spelling, I don't say, "You're spelling it wrong," or "This is the right spelling." I say, "Here's the standard spelling, the one that authors use so everyone can read it." Her current "spelling words" are I love you.  That's what she writes the most, so I'm giving her the standard spellings for those words. We practice at "sit-down" school time, using white boards, shaving cream, paint, or writing in the sand. We also practice whenever she's writing I love you. I simply say, "Are you using the standard spellings or your own?" Or I ask, "Who is your audience? Do you think they'll be able to read them without the standard spellings?" This leaves the power in her hands, and the knowledge in her control. If she wants "everybody" to be able to read it, she'll use the standard spellings.

How Much Joy Today?

If you've read the second post of Stealth Kindergarten, you know that Joy isn't always so joyful... today was one of those days. From the outset, Joy was oppositional about every, single task, no matter how easy. This was during our "sit-down" school time, which is 45 minutes each day. Mind you, we do not sit down and do worksheets for 45 minutes straight-- Ugh! We play with puppets, read books, play games, do puzzles, etc. It is a time when I control the direction of our activities, though, with some flexibility (like the writing project on wildcats that turned into puffins!).

The main purpose of this "sit-down" school time is to help Joy develop her ability to follow directions and let someone else be in charge. This is very difficult for her, but essential to her well-being as an adult. I know no one who doesn't have to do what they're told sometimes! We had a perfect example during our vacation: Airport security isn't the time to joke, get distracted, or be uncooperative! There are times you need to be able to simply follow someone else's agenda. This 45 minutes is the training for doing that. And it is sometimes a serious challenge for Joy!

When she refuses to cooperate, the timer goes off and I turn my attention elsewhere. She's not allowed to play or leave the table; the plan is that she'll calm herself down and let me know she's ready to work again. Not today... not for a while, at least. She was oppositional for over an hour! Today I was able to stay calm, supportive, and consistent through the whole ordeal. (I wish I could say I'm always able to be calm, supportive, and consistent, but I occasionally get frustrated and raise my voice with demands. It's not very effective!)

Today became a complete success when, after over an hour, she was able to turn her behavior around and cooperate again. This is what we're working for! If she can learn to recognize her own oppositional behavior and its ineffectiveness to achieve what she wants, and then be able to change the oppositional behavior into cooperative behavior, we'll be successful in our homeschooling!

I refuse to utilize a "behavior modification" program for completing school tasks because it teaches mindless obedience in exchange for a treat or prize. I am not above using such a program for some behaviors! It's one tool in my toolbox, but it's not the right tool for cooperating in school. What we really want in homeschool "sit-down" school time is for Joy to understand that continuing to try when something is difficult pays off in learning (not in treats or prizes) and that learning is valuable! That it's safe and okay to obey someone you trust, like your parents. And that your parents (and other adults you trust) will not ask you to do things that are horrible, awful, impossible, or disgusting (at least not until you're a teenager and know everything anyway!).

So...How much Joy today??? Despite my exhausted energy from the ordeal, LOTS of Joy! It's good to see her grow and learn in so many ways, but this way is essential to her future success and happiness!

Her Way

One of the great things about Stealth Kindergarten and homeschooling is that I can let Joy's interests lead the way. My plan yesterday was for us to begin writing about the Scottish wildcats, but that isn't what Joy was interested in. She wanted to write about the puffin adventure.

 In homeschooling Joy, I don't want to allow her to do whatever she wants, but even in a classroom, a good teacher would allow a child to write on the topic of his/her choice. I was certainly not going to stifle her interest, so we wrote about puffins instead.

The process of writing this piece (see left) took about 25 minutes. We used Microsoft Publisher. Sure, sometimes Joy writes by hand, but how do adults do most of their writing these days? How long has it been since you hand wrote a story or a piece for work? I want to prepare Joy for her future, not my past. She will be using computers to do many, many things. Besides, writing with technology is in the Common Core Standards (not till third grade, mind you, but I believe that is a mistake!). And...she loves to write on the computer.

So, I showed Joy how to add photos from our vacation (I changed a couple of the ones she choose, for privacy's sake) and helped her work through the spelling of the words she typed. She typed most of the first sentence. After that, she dictated and I typed. Her keyboarding skills are in the developing stage, and I wanted to her to add more details and thought. I printed off a copy for her and one for me.

Joy was delighted with her writing and shared it with her dad the minute he walked in the door. She read it without difficulty. I had her reread it during our "sit-down" school time this morning. She had to work on a few words, but overall, she read is easily. It will become one of her regular reading pieces for a while.

Just a bit ago, Joy asked me, "Can I use your computer to write about the slugs we found that one day?" Me (giggling just a little bit in my head): "Sure, Honey!"  (Let's sneak in some more learning!)