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.