Here We Go Again

We are well into our first week of school and I am t-i-r-e-d. I spent many hours since the Thursday arrival of our material trying to get a good handle on my direction for this year. My first attempt at planning was to go through both of the boys' lesson manuals provided by the publishers of the curriculum and decide which individual activities we should do. That idea turned out to be very overwhelming. I threw plan one out the window and tried a different approach. I went through the first week of lessons and looked for the key concepts that were being introduced or reviewed. Then I went through the text and work books and found material that I judged worthwhile that taught those concepts. After that, I added my own things from my immense pile. This plan suited me much better and also fits the new flexibility theme.

Now...do you remember the schedule plan? EM was to start the day at 8:30 with JT coming in around 9:30. Monday morning both boys were up at 7:30 ready to go. JT NEVER gets out of bed that early. I decided to stick with the plan and sent EM downstairs to wait for me. JT was told he could finish breakfast and read until it was time for him to begin. When I walked in the classroom, EM was sitting at his desk with his hands folded. How cute is that?! That will probably be the only time it ever happens. My plan worked fairly well the first day. I felt like we accomplished some learning and some schedule adjusting. In the afternoon, we had an archaeological dig in our sandbox (strainght from the activity book for "Story of the World: Volume 1"). Hands on learning. Check another item off my new goals list!

The second day was a bit more of a struggle. JT had an allergy shot in the morning, so we had less time for schooling. EM was home with my husband and did some worksheets while I was away. I couldn't get the rhythm back that day. We did manage to do a couple experiments involving buoyancy from Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid.

As the week has progressed I have realized this juggling act will require me to have less balls in the air. I am trying to pack so many things into a day, that I keep dropping the balls. Today we went with the 'less is more' method. We had to be somewhere a little after noon, so I planned very few things for the morning. We finished all of our work and I resisted the urge to add more to that free time. I felt a bit less stressed.

This weekend I will have limited planning time due to a Saturday family reunion 4 hours away. I think keeping it simple may turn out to be more complicated than it sounds...but I'll give it a try.

Wouldja Look at That!

The big brown truck finally backed into our driveway this afternoon. We will be starting our school year Monday. How nice that they arrived in time. (read with much sarcasm) The large pile to the left is EM's first grade materials. 19 separate books! I have 4 lesson manuals just for him. JT's is not as overwhelming, but I have issues with that as well. (of course) Calvert offers two different versions of it's curriculum, Scholastic or Academic. Here is a description of the differences from Calvert's site:

Calvert Academic (Pre-Kindergarten through Eighth Grade)

The Calvert Academic curriculum is our traditional instruction with the rigorous pace that our families have come to expect from Calvert. Students enrolled in Academic courses cover more topics in history and science; write additional, more complex compositions; and complete more advanced work with literature selections.

Calvert Scholastic (Fourth through Eighth Grades)

The Calvert Scholastic curriculum provides Calvert's challenging and integrated core curriculum, but it is structured in a way that gives students extra support in grammar, composition, and critical thinking. Its instructional focus meets the needs of students who require extra support in these key subject areas through additional review and skill reinforcement while maintaining the challenge of a Calvert experience.

Hmmm, additional review...just what we need.

PACyber used to purchase the Academic version for all of their students. This summer they decided they didn't like the History text offered for that version because it was thought to be 'too religious' and didn't follow PA standards closely enough. Now all students using Calvert have to use the Scholastic version of the curriculum. I have only made a quick survey of what we received at this point, but I can tell from the tests we won't be having much challenge from this material.

I still haven't made up my mind if this is good or bad. I have LOADS of things I can do in addition (and would actually prefer to use) to what they have sent. EM's first grade books seem a bit below where he is now, but I can see some value in a few of the things I have looked at so far. So it's not a total loss. It just seems so ridiculous to keep up this routine. Have I said all of this before? I am compiling a list of questions for the homeschooling liason at PDE. That call is on my list of things to do in the next month. I want to do my research before I call, but it is definitely a direction I am interested in heading.

In more interesting news...I am almost done with the centers box. I made a great find at Wal-mart last week. They had a whole pile of learning activities on clearance! I bought an Active Minds Pocket Chart and sets of cards to go with it. They had Spanish/English words and some 3 and 4 letter word matching games (good for EM). I also found an Addition Facts bingo game. Yes, I could have made it myself...but it was only $2. I did make my own flashcards for rhyming words (EM), time telling (EM) and at the suggestion of JT, cards to build sentences. I had to come up with nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs..etc to print onto cards that he could arrange into 'funny' sentences. I color coded them to parts of speech so EM could also use them to master that concept. I also made cards (at the suggestion of a friend) with things like, "make 48 cents using 7 coins". We have a nice set of play money from Discovery Toys that will work for that one.

I read an interesting article this week about parents hiring tutors to prepare their children for Kindergarten. In the article they mentioned how cut-throat Kindergarten can be now in the United States. Children who can not read by the end of that first year of school are being held back to repeat. The author brought up how we are trying to compete with other countries and falling behind. However, it was mentioned that in other countries children typically begin school later and are not expected to read until age 8. What are we doing wrong? Are we trying too hard? It really hammered home how I want this year to be a less structured year...especially for EM. He is 5 (will be 6 in October) and is enrolled as a first grader. He will be expected to complete that level of work. I believe it will not be hard for him to master the concepts, but I will not expect him to sit and do seat work for the amount of time they recommend. He will be exploring the world in a more hands on way. Whether using the center activities or Legos or just hanging out in the backyard checking out nature. I want him to seek out information, not force feed him from a big box the UPS man brought to our door.

Promises, Promises....

Still no books ordered by our cyber school! I can not get a good answer as to why they can't order yet. I was told on Tuesday, that they will be ordered by the end of the week. Sure.

In the meantime, JT and I had a long talk about our schedule for this year. He was used to having me all to himself most of the time last year. Now that EM will be joining our happy little group, things will be changing a bit. I asked JT if he thought he could be responsible enough to get up on his own, get some breakfast (if I leave some helps along the way...i.e. milk in the creamer for his cereal) and be dressed and ready to join us by 9:30am. EM is an early riser, so I figure I will work on his reading and math for an hour before JT joins us. Then we can do some shared learning, move on to gym and then EM can go work on some independent learning while JT and I work on his instruction time. JT seemed to think it was a good idea and promised to work on following the schedule. All of this sounds lovely...until the first day when EM is running late or JT won't get up or.....

Oh yeah, flexibility!

I also felt ambitious this week and put together some index cards for our "fun" box. These activities are things we can do together. Some of the cards say things like 'take a walk', 'play an educational game' or 'watch an educational video'. I am thinking I will need some stress relief as I adjust to two kids in the classroom. These cards will be for days when we are starting to feel the pressure. Educational activities...but ones I don't need to direct. I am still working on activity cards the boys can use independently when I am working with one of them. I have found several teacher sites with 'center' activities. The problem I'm having is that most are geared for more than one child. I will need more than what I have put together at this point, but I have a few for the beginning of our year. I want to be able to say, "Go work on an independent activity" and have it be a packaged, ready to go kit.

Finally, I found a new site/catalog that I LOVE! Home Science Tools. I placed my first order this week after poring over the catalog for days. I have page after page marked for my wish list. We ordered a slide making kit for our microscope, a protozoa hatchery kit and a cool laminated photo elements chart. At the rate I'm going, I won't need the curriculum from the school! I could teach for the next 5 years with the things I already have in my classroom.....and maybe I just will.

A Little Progress

I finally forced myself to go into the classroom and begin tackling the piles. I went through everything on the floor and have one small stack left that will take a little extra thought. I also cleaned the desks and the windows and took every last thing off the bookcase! Now I have the top shelf dedicated to reference materials and the bottom will hold our current textbooks. I also ordered a new larger bookcase for my office for all the material we will use in the future. For some reason that pile has grown quite large this summer....maybe something to do with book sales? :-)

I also made a discovery. I have far too much in mind for this year. So, I pulled a few things from each pile and set them aside for 'later'. Maybe we will get to them this year, but if not, that's perfectly alright. I made 3 groups of with the remaining books. Things for JT, things for EM and things for both. History, science and Spanish will have a lot of overlap. I STILL don't have the Calvert material. I think there may be some benefit to NOT having it. I am spending more time and energy planning with the 'supplemental' things, that maybe I'll have an easier time ignoring what I feel to be the inferior material.

Finally, I took some time to put together our list of general educational goals:

1. Teach PA standards through Calvert material.
2. Provide opportunities and direction for the boys to explore their own interests.
3. Expose the boys to a wide variety of things they may not have been exposed to yet.
4. Develop a love of reading. (not a problem with JT...could be a challenge with EM)
5. Create life-long learners.

Light the fire!