A Little Rebellion Every Now & Then

Essentially, we’re going to be concentrating on historical fiction covering early American history (Jamestown through the 49ers), but I’m also putting in children’s versions of important literature that was published during that time frame - i.e., The Three Musketeers, The Jungle Book.

We already have a number of books. I made a list of books I wanted to try to find at the used bookstore, and found several, and then I added the books we already owned. It adds up to quite a few books. On the one hand, Gillian is a good reader; on the other hand, I don’t want to overwhelm her. In general, we’ll read some books more ‘in-depth’ and perhaps do three to four book reports over the course of the year. There’s a mix of picture books, short chapter books, and long chapter books in what we have. Finally, I’ve already decided that some books will be not required but “suggested” or “available” during the relevant time period.

Here’s what I’ve decided upon at this point, for required reading by Gillian:
Don Quixote and the Windmills, Eric Kimmel, illus. Leonard Everett Fisher.
Blood on the River, Carbone.
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery.
Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Brothers Grimm. (I want to use the Veritas Press guide with this.)
The Three Musketeers, Dumas, adapt. Vogel.
Gulliver’s Travels, Swift. (Another adaptation, with illustrations as well.)
Calico Bush, Rachel Field.
The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling.
Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling.
The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper, adapt. Martin.
The Sign of the Beaver, Speare.
The Fighting Ground, Avi.
Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold, Jean Fritz.
Mr. Revere & I, Robert Lawson.
Ben & Me, Robert Lawson.
Fever 1793, Anderson.
Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Henry.
The Great Little Madison, Jean Fritz.
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Latham.
American Tall Tales, Osborne.
Paul Bunyan and Other Tall Tales, Mason.
My America, Hopkins.
A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens, adapt. Vogel.
Oliver Twist, Dickens, adapt. Vogel.
A Gathering of Days, Blos.
The Devil’s Highway, Applegate.
Seaman’s Journal, Eubank.
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, adapt. Snyder.
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, Twain, adapt. Vogel.
All Night, All Day, Ashley Bryan.
“The Man with the Twisted Lip,” in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera.
The Birchbark House, Erdrich.

I decided on our read-aloud books, so I’ve pulled them from the list above:
Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates, Mary Mapes Dodge.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Speare.
My Name Is Not Angelica, Scott O’Dell.
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes.
Streams to the River, River to the Sea, Scott O’Dell.
Amos Fortune, Free Man, Elizabeth Yates.

I think it’ll be a good mix. The hardest and/or longest titles are now read-alouds, and as for the others, there’s a good mix of shorter vs. longer.

Later on, I’ll type out all of the supplemental/optional titles. Some weeks, Gillian will finish the required book in just one or two days, so for the remainder of that week’s reading time, she’ll be able to go down the supplemental/optional list. I don’t think the books on it are “as good” but they’re still worthwhile and still can count as part of her school reading time.

I’ve been lurking over at the WTM boards again… they suck me in more than I would like to admit, from time to time.

At any rate, there have been a spate of posts recently about planning - how people do it, what people keep in their own “teacher notebook” and so forth. I’ve never really been content with how I had things planned. I either had computer files or handwritten notes, but I never have managed to keep it all in one place, and since I made my schedules dependent on dates, it was too easy to need to scrap the whole thing before the school year was even a fourth done.

One of the posts I read gave me an idea, though. Schedule 180 days, and number the days. Then, if we’re “off schedule,” I have to redo exactly one schedule, the one that shows what date corresponds to what number day. That’s it! All the other schedules would remain exactly the same!

I’m also going to keep my state forms in the same notebook. This sounds like a really good idea, since I tend to forget them.

So far, then, I’ve planned out all of next year’s grammar in an excel spreadsheet, with a column for each particular resource, and the numbered days in the leftmost column. I’ve managed to schedule about half of the math (I don’t have the rest of the math books yet to schedule those!). I’ll probably take a stab at spelling and Latin sometime in the next few days. Then I’ll move on to some of the weekly subjects, before coming back to reading/literature. I have to put together what titles I want Gillian to read, and then figure out the scheduling, so that’s the most complex.

The main thing, though, is that I think this will really work. Beyond that, it will enable someone else to pick up my notebook and find everything they need to get Gillian going on schoolwork without my having to detail exactly what’s expected for that day in person.

I can’t believe it’s already time to start planning in earnest for next year.

I’ve started on my list of items at which to look during the convention. I don’t really want to hear any of the speakers, so we’re just going to pay for entry into the vendor hall. I think that the fee will be worth it both in terms of saving on shipping costs and by the fact that Sam will actually attend with me and look at the materials.

So, at what to look?

I know I want to look at RightStart. At the very least, I want to get the Math Card Games Kit and the Fraction Puzzle. I want to take a look at the scope and sequence of Levels C through E. I don’t think I’ll change programs for Gillian at this point but I haven’t totally decided against it. Finally, I’m seriously considering going ahead and purchasing Level A. I know I want to use it with Jacob starting at some point during his “K3″ year (especially as he’ll be 3 1/2 before we ever start “K3″) but I also thought that some of it could be “fun” for Gillian without her really realizing it’s a form of review.

I know I want to go to the Classical Home Education table. If I haven’t purchased it by then, I want to get R.E.A.L. Science Life (Level One), for use during the remainder of this school year and over the summer. I’m also definitely going to purchase R.E.A.L. Science Earth & Space (Level One) along with the supplemental materials.

I’d like to check out the poetry memorization program that Institute for Excellence in Writing produces. I want to find out more about Phonetic Zoo, too.

I’m waiting on the Sonlight catalogue to see if there’s anything I want to purchase from them. I’m seriously considering purchasing Core 2, or at least parts of it, and using it as a supplement to SOTW 2 (and possibly 3 & 4, since it does cover from the “Dark Ages” onward to modern history). I don’t know. Even though I hate having something scheduled for me, I’m not sure that I don’t need something scheduled for me.

I’m hoping to take a look at various modern language programs. I really still want Gillian to learn Spanish, but I need something that requires little to no teacher interaction. On top of that, I’d prefer something that wasn’t computer-based. I know I’ll have to compromise on at least part of that, which is another reason I want Sam with me. He’s a good sounding board, most of the time.

Luckily I already have what I need for spelling, handwriting, writing, grammar, and history. I have a few “real” books I want to buy for both history and classical studies, but I will do that via amazon. I really have what I need for mathematics as well; the Math Card Games Kit will be a supplement, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll ditch the Miquon/Developmental Math combination with Gillian.

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.