What's the old saying? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"!

Last Spring I picked up 1A and 1B of the Singapore Earlybird Math series and we almost completed the first workbook over the summer. Kayleigh really enjoyed it until the last lesson or so...it required drawing and that's just not her thing right now. I really wanted to use Saxon Math instead anyways, so we switched in Sept....don't know why, well, probably because I found the K teacher's guide for $7.00. So far, she's not liking it and I'm not really liking it; here's why:

• No workbook--Kayleigh is a workbook junky. I think it gives her a sense of accomplishment when she has to keep turning pages to get to the lessons we are on.
• Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive....did I say repetitive. I mean, how many times does a child have to sort something by colors to figure it out. Kayleigh is one of those kids that picks up new skills really fast, so the repetition is just plain boring her.

I think I am going to eat the $7.00 and switch back to Singapore Earlybird.

So the lesson learned here is: It's not a good deal unless it's a good fit!

Some thoughts going through my head.....

• Is it possible to overdose on grapes?
• I love toddler hands, they are so cute! I think I might cry when I don't have them in the house anymore.
• I dread the day Kayleigh quits saying "got forgot" instead of "forgot"; it's cute and adorable in that little-girl way.
• Picked up a book at the library last week, How Children Learn by John Holt. Apparently it's a classic in child development. He has some very interesting ideas and I wish I had read it earlier. Here are some quotes I found interesting:
• "We cannot separate an act from the skills involved in the act. The baby does not learn to speak by learning the skills of speech and then using them to speak with....He learns to speak by speaking"---I would say this also applies to reading and writing. I would also adventure to say we could apply this to spiritual matters, too.
  
• "...the best games with little children flow easily and naturally from the situation of the moment. We are not likely to get good games by planning them far in advance, but we will probably get them if we play with children just for the fun of it....The spirit of these games is everything. The only good reason for playing games with babies is because we love them, and delight in playing these games with them and in sharing their delight in playing--not because we want someday to get them into college. It is our delight in the baby and the games that make the games fun, and worthwhile and useful for the baby. Take away the delight, and put in its place some cold-hearted calculation about future IQ and SAT scores, and we kill the game, for ourselves and the baby."
• "...if we think that every time we talk to a child we must teach her something, our talk may become calculated and fake, and may lead the child to think, like so many of today's (1983) young people, that all talk is a lie and a cheat."
• "Most of the many things children learn, and that we all learned as children--to walk, talk, read, write, etc.--they learn by trying to do them, making mistakes and then correcting the mistakes."---It is difficult for me to allow my children to make mistakes, even in small things. I think this has created some of timidity I am beginning to see in Kayleigh. Need to work on this! Probably need to decide it's okay to make mistakes myself. I really am a perfectionist...if I cannot do it well, I simple do not do it. This applies to housecleaning and cooking, as well as relationships.
• THANK YOU, ALICIA!!! Those cookies you blogged about are AWESOME!!!!!! I really like that the recipe is fairly easy for Kayleigh to read and follow! She loved helping me make them.
• I am so ready to be DONE with school! At the rate I'm taking classes, I have about another four years :( I think the main problem is the degree I am going for, General Studies, is not the degree I really want, but I can't get anything else through online courses. Maybe I should just take the ones I can online for the degree I want and then go to campus when the opportunity arrives, i.e. kids are in school, whenever that will be.