A Little Rebellion Every Now & Then

I’ve been on a new curriculum buying kick for the past few weeks. It started with Growing With Grammar. We’ve been using First Language Lessons since the beginning of our kindergarten year, and just finished it. I know that the follow-up book is due out in July, but I had essentially already decided to use Growing With Grammar instead, especially as the publishing schedule is very real world-friendly (at least one new book per year, so a child who started with the third grade level will have his/her fifth grade level in time for this autumn). I did consider going ahead with third grade level for Gillian now, but that’s really a big jump, especially in terms of the writing required, so we went with the first and second grade level. We’re steaming through the initial (first grade) portion at a rate of two lessons per day, four days a week. She seems to like it and I like that it’s essentially self-directed.

Then I purchased The Complete Guide to Teaching Spelling. We haven’t actually started it yet, as it arrived on Friday, but I’ve read over it and I’m pretty excited about it. I think it will really help Gillian to spell. I would say spell better but the simple true is that basically she cannot spell at present, so let’s just say it will help her to spell, period. My only complaint is that for having to pay $9.95 for the letter tiles, I shouldn’t also have to cut them.

Finally, after around two years of periodic contemplation, I went ahead and bought Managers of Their Homes. I resisted for a number of reasons previously. Firstly, I don’t have a large family. I have two kids, and even when we add a third, that will likely be our last. (The current plan is to have a third in the autumn of 2008, which would mean that I wou ld have, for example, a twelve yo, a seven yo, and an almost four yo at the beginning of 2012-2013 school year.) I don’t and will not have the issues of a baby and toddler simultaneously, nor of having four, five, or more children under the age of ten or twelve. Second in my list of reasons for not purchasing was the very fundamentalist bent that it seemed to have from both samples and the talk of those utilizing it. Finally, I resisted the idea of a rigid schedule. A routine was one thing, I thought, but an actual schedule couldn’t be a good plan.

Except, of course, that the world runs on schedules. It took being “flexible” for most of this first grade year to impress upon me the need to work out a better schedule. And even though I don’t have a baby and a toddler to entertain simultaneously, my lack of other children for Jacob with which to play while I school Gillian has represented a huge hindrance this year. Finally, while I tried having a cleaning service, I haven’t been able to find another one, and beyond that, certain tasks cannot be left to a cleaning service. The clutter is still owned by us as a family; the dishes must be washed, food prepared, trash taken to the trash can, and so on.

So I decided to buy the book. I haven’t actually finished it yet, much less started using the Scheduling Kit, but despite the heavy-hand fundamentalism in parts, I think this is going to be a big help. I don’t think I need to submit to my husband’s wishes (more like he needs to submit to mine, if anyone’s doing any submitting - which they aren’t), and so forth, but there is not much difference between Teri Maxwell’s prayer and time and what I would call meditation and ‘percolating.’ The intent behind both behaviors is to clarify priorities.

So I’m happy with all three of these purchases, so far.