Halacha Songs!

I just finished composing another little halacha song. The halacha for this week is "Kabed es-avicha v'es imecha." ("Honor your father and your mother.") I think we'll be spending two or three weeks on this important mitzva. This has been such a fun project. Early today I heard them all singing songs I had done for Pirkei Avos last spring! It's nice to hear them remembering the songs. With the current songs, I'm also making sure that we are able to speak/read the words and not just sing them. The music is also being carefully written so it does not muck with the pronunciation in terms of both where the accents fall and for clarity. So... I think I'm ready for the week. Most schools are taking a break right now. We'll continue our mornings as usual, but maybe go on a few more excursions in the afternoons.

We also ripped out the learning room floor today (with a LOT of excellent help from Eli!). Of course, one home improvement project leads to another and we now can't bear to put in the floor before freshly painting the walls a nice white to brighten the room (instead of the gray they are now). So... first we have to paint the walls. But if we paint the walls, we really need to remove (and junk) all the nearly-useless upward-pointing fluorescent light fixtures going around the whole top of the walls. We've been using it for out-of-reach shelving, so instead the closet in the room will get lined with shelves and look nicer to boot. OY. We're having fun, though, and can't wait to see it all!