I'll let those Andrew Lloyd Webber fans out there try to get that song out of their heads for a moment before I begin... Well, it's just not gonna happen. So, anyway...
Sometimes people can have the best of intentions. Sometimes they actually DO the thing they intended. And sometimes, it just doesn't work out. Sometimes, you can have accomplished a great deal, a HUGE deal, but still not have achieved the end goal, and without that goal, all you have done and worked for is for nothing. In fact, it was the opposite, it was not nothing, it was everything, only in the wrong direction. Well, that's what's been going on here. Those of you who know me know what I am talking about. For those of you who do not, well, I'm not going to get into it right now, but perhaps you've been through something like this. The only thing to do is damage control, and then you have to get up, dust yourself off, and continue on. Look at what happened, and what SHOULD have happened, sure, to make sure that history does not repeat itself. But in the end, all you can do is move on ahead the best you can.
Soooo......
The Chief is starting a new school year in September with the new 2nd edition of the Whole Child, Healthy Planet Curriculum Guide from Global Village School. I love it. I'm using it within the framework laid out in A Thomas Jefferson Education, so basically we are being very casual with it, reading books during "Kid School" time and discussing them. We'll be looking at different service projects we can do, things where we can help people and animals and our neighborhood. We'll be learning about different cultures around the world, and learning about our place in the world and how we fit into the big picture.
We had been using Five in a Row, and it was good and enjoyable, but I think we are ready to work on another level now, and the book in the WCHP guide resonate with me in a way that the FIAR books didn't. Yes, the FIAR books are wonderful, and we are going to continue doing those units here and there, matching them up where the topics are applicable. But what we are going to do is take the methods we learned from FIAR and apply them to the WCHP books. These books I feel will go a bit farther as far as the "Inspire, Not Require" because the topics actually mean something to me, rather than just being nice stories. It will be easier to inspire with these than it would be for books that might be nice stories but I feel are "young" or trivial.
The Chief will be going into Math U See Gamma, where he'll be learning all about multiplication. We've really been enjoying Math U See over the past several years, and I am glad to see it is Global Village School's top choice for math!
I've been kind of torn about the Workboxes lately. On one hand, they really help Elijah with his independent work, keeping him organized and on track, etc. On the other hand they are not very TJ Ed-ish... With the new program we are doing, I am thinking of kind of using them to hold things, but not as a schedule. I'll have to play around with ideas and see what works.
