Top Ten Tuesday: "So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away..." Summer 2013

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.

-Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Well, things have changed over the course of the last year and I have learned quite a bit about SC, her learning style, and what type of curriculum will work for us.  If you read my curriculum post from the beginning of this past school year, I said something very similar.  Who knew that kids keep changing as they grow up!  I will go into more detail about the changes for next fall in a later post, but I wanted to highlight the few things we will be working on over the summer.  Honestly, I was never a child who loved summer "break."  I liked having a short break from school, but I quickly got bored with daytime tv (I am probably one of the few people who really does not like The Price is Right) and I was ready to go back to school.  I don't quite know how summer with SC would look without doing some sort of schooling at home, but I do know she hasn't stopped asking to do school yet for more than a day or so break, and I am not inclined to force her to quit just because the public schools happen to give their teachers time "off."

So, here are the few things we will be working on for the summer, plus some fun activities.  Any new curriculum I will give an overview of, but if you want more details about some of the things we are continuing, check them out here.

1. BIBLE

For Bible lessons we will be continuing with the "Beginner" pages from Bible Study for All Ages.  I like this program because I am actually reading straight from the Bible to SC, and reading whole chapters, not just what some might consider familiar stories.  However, I will be switching to another program in the fall that I think will actually fit our family even better.  More on that when it is closer to fall.

2. PHONICS / READING

We are on Book 2 of the Explode the Code series, and should finish that this summer.  We are using Explode the Code more of a supplement than an actual core curriculum and will continue this way in the fall with a new reading program. 

We only have Collection 3 left of the BOB Books, and with our new reading challenge in place, I think it will only be a matter of days before we are completely done with these.  We have a large quantity of the I Can Read!  books that I am trying to guide her toward.  She is really apprehensive to read anything other than BOB books, but the reading challenge, for now, has given her a little push in the direction of at least trying.


3. WRITING / SPELLING

We are working on A Reason for Handwriting level A, which has Bible verses to work on as practice.  She really likes doing "day 5," which is creating her Bible verse on a coloring sheet to give to someone (usually AC).  We got way off schedule with this, so we will go through into fall and start level B once we get there.

In conjunction with the Bible verses in A Reason for Handwriting level A is the spelling lessons in A Reason for Spelling level A.  We are using this for the summer, but in the fall will switch to something that goes along with the new reading program instead.

  

4. MATH / LOGIC

 We switched away from Math-U-See at the end of last year when it was becoming a struggle to get SC to do the problems with the manipulatives.  She also seemed to all of a sudden be much further past where the program was.  After some research, we started Singapore Math Primary Mathematics level 1A and it has so far been a great fit.  We will continue through the summer and start level 1B in the fall.  We will also be adding some Lollipop Logic, mazes and other critical thinking activities.

5. SCIENCE / HISTORY

Instead of working on a curriculum for science and history this summer, we will be spending a lot of time going on field trips to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the Fort Worth Zoo.  We have already been to the Perot once, and had a great time, including getting to see James Cameron's DEEPSEA Challenger submarine.

6. SPANISH

We attempted to begin French last year, but having a curriculum to follow just ended up being too much for SC at 4 years old.  So, we took a break, and since then, she has actually asked if we can learn Spanish first instead.  We live in Texas, so there are many people we come across who speak it, and opportunities for practice.  Also, our sponsored Compassion child lives in a Spanish-speaking country, which  has helped spark some interest.  For the summer we will be watching Muzzy dvds and  Little Pim dvds, all free from the library.



7. MUSIC

Last fall we started a group "piano readiness" class at a local university and it will both well and not-so well.  SC picked up on things very quickly, which was great, but then didn't have the patience to wait for the other students to catch up.  She would spend her waiting time wandering the teacher's office and trying to figure out how to get the other pianos (keyboards) or other mechanical devices to come on.  The teacher loved SC, but recommended she switch to private lessons.  Unfortunately, this teacher did not have space to teach SC herself and we tried a graduate student, which was not a good fit.  So, the original teacher has recommended another teacher (who is even closer to our home), and after a trial lesson last week, we will be starting weekly lessons.  I am very excited, and so is SC, who loves to sit and just play on our piano at home.


8. PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Though dance comes to an end for the summer, gymnastics does not.  SC will be taking one gymnastics lesson a week.  She is also enrolled in swim lessons for the summer, and we will probably continue in the fall.  We started SC in swim lessons when she was one year old in a "parent-n-me" style class, and we continued until last summer, when the place we had been attending switched management and got rid of our favorite teacher.  Now, a year later, we have found another place we really like, and SC is thrilled to get to swim again.


9. CAMP

The preschool SC has been attending holds a twice a week summer camp that runs the same times during the day as the preschool was.  This year the theme is "Under the Big Top," and SC is very excited to see what sort of activities this circus theme will entail.  I love that the school holds this camp, because I really like having a little time to myself each week to do things that I cannot necessarily get done efficiently with SC in tow (even if that is just sitting at the bookstore and reading a book for a few hours).  Next year the school will also have a "bridge" kindergarten class twice a week that SC will attend, which will give us a good chance to give real homeschooling a try, but still keep things similar to how they have been in the past, making the change a little less.


10. SWIMMING

I know I mentioned swim lessons, but we will also be spending a large amount of time at grandma's pool, as well as the local waterpark that has an amazing area for smaller children.  We bought a season pass there last year at the recommendation of a few people, and it was great to have that, because we could go a few times a week for just a little while and not feel we had wasted the large entrance fee.  


What are your plans for summer?  Are you doing any school or summer bridge activities?  Leave a comment, and then check out some other Top Ten Tuesday posts here:

Week 1: "Do not despise the bottom rungs ..."

"Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness."

-Publilius Syrus

After much ado, we finally started week 1 of our K4/1st grade year this week.  It has been a tough week, as we really haven't been working on anything with any regularity since probably May, so neither SC nor I are quite back to having a schedule.  This week it took us about 3 1/2 hours in the afternoons on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and one hour in the afternoons on Tuesday/Thursday, to complete our schedule, but SC is a dawdler and it takes her much longer to do some of the activities than it should due to lack of focus.  Hopefully as we progress through the year and she get more used to the schedule, this will get better.

We have turned our dining room into an office/school room, and SC has a small desk from Ikea that is just her size.  

I spent the prior two weeks working hard on completing a schedule.  I styled it after the Sonlight plans, and ended up using MS Excel rather than MS Word due to the fact that I can never get tables to work correctly in MS Word.  Once I figure out how to link to documents, I will add a link for anyone who wants to borrow the template.  If you want to take a look and try it for your own plans, click here.  Here is how it ended up looking:

   

So, here is what we did this week:

HISTORY
Reminder: We are using the History Odyssey: Ancients curriculum.

Monday we completed Pocket 1 history pocket ("What is History?") and read the information included in it.  Part of the pocket was discussing the words "past," "present," and "future."  We had a great time talking about things that have happened in the last year, things that were happing now, and things that were going to happen in the future.  We were also able to discuss all these words as they related to SC's Halloween costume choices, as she has the next five years planned out already.


  

Wednesday we read Story of the World "How do we know what happened?", watched the Bill Nye Archaeology video, used the Webster's New World Children's Dictionary to define "archaeology," and drew a picture about what she learned from the readings.  She chose to draw her picture of an excavation site after we read the awesome book Archaeologists Dig for Clues (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2).

Friday we read the book The Magic School Bus Shows And Tells: A Book About Archaeology and discussed the history words we had learned this week:

• ancient
• basic needs
• civilization
• history
• archaeology
• artifact
• past
• present
• future

  
*I used a site called ZB Fonts Online to create our own fill-in-the-blank version of the definition for SC to use when she copied her vocabulary word this week.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Reminder: We are using Explode the Code (ETC), A Reason for Spelling (ARFS), and A Reason for Handwriting (ARFH).

Monday SC took the consonant pretest that accompanies Book 1 of ETC.  She didn't miss even one letter, which tells me it was a good idea to skip the end of Book B and all of Book C, which just goes over the rest of the consonants.  Wednesday we reviewed short "a" with final "t" and worked on page 1, while Friday we worked on pages 2-3.

For ARFS and ARFH, both have a six-week review/practice, which we started this week, practice #1-5 for ARFH, and practice #1-8 for ARFS.  Handwriting and spelling are two of the lessons we are doing daily, not just M/W/F, because I believe this is something that should be practiced every day.

Our read aloud this week was to finish up Dinosaurs before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne.

MATH
Reminder: We are using Math-U-See Primer level for our curriculum.

This week we started an introduction to addition, where we discuss the symbols "plus" and "equals," plus work on using the base 10 blocks to create simple, single-digit addition problems.

 

SCIENCE
Reminder: We are using Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy with the Junior Notebooking Journal for our curriculum.

This week we started Lesson 1: What is Astronomy, where we briefly discussed the stars, planets, the calendar, the solar system, and astronomers.  She really enjoyed practicing gravity, jumping and dropping things, shouting "falls to the Earth!"  She worked on coloring two pages from the junior notebooking journal, plus we practiced reciting the planets in order, and created a fact sheet from what we had read about.  Next week we will complete Lesson 1 and do the lab project.

 
BIBLE
Reminder: We are using Bible Study for All Ages: Beginner for our curriculum.

This week we picked up with our Bible lessons where we had left off and studied Genesis 47-50, as well as started on Daniel with books 1 & 2.  We actually moved Bible lesson to right before bedtime, and it has been great because AC can help reading and instructing while he is here, and it has been great to do this all together as a family.

ART/CRAFTS

While we were in San Francisco, I picked up a book called Don't Let the Pigeon Finish This Activity Book!, and SC worked on the first two activities, tracing and copying a picture of the pigeon, and creating a bus stop sign.  She really loved the Mo Willems "Pigeon" books, so this was a no brainer to get when I saw it.  She has been asking every single day to do activities from it.

 

FRENCH

I decided to hold off on starting French for right now, to get us used to being back on a school schedule, plus it is already more intensive than last spring with history and science curriculum.  Also, most of our out-of-the house activities are in the morning, which means all of our school is done in the afternoon, and SC is pretty tired.  Hopefully next fall, once she is officially five years old and her activities will make the assumption she is in public school all day, we will be able to rearrange it to spending the morning on school and she will be more fresh for French.


What was your week like?  Leave a comment, then check out what other homeschoolers are up to at



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Top Ten Tuesday: "The meeting of two personalities ..."

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." - Carl Jung

Last week I read a guest post by Tara Ziegmont on The Pelsers' blog about getting to know your homeschool student.  Specifically, it asked the question "do you know your [child's] learning style?"  I, unfortunately, had to respond in the negative.  These past few months of pseudo-homeschooling while we just live life I have not taken any steps to learn what learning styles even are, nor how to focus what SC's are into a better educational experience for her.  

Since this year I really want to take a serious look at whether or not homeschooling is the best choice for our family, at least for the near future, I spent some time reading up about Myers-Briggs typology, analyzing myself, analyzing SC (analyzing AC, of course, too), and trying to use this new knowledge to apply it back toward my teaching plans for this year.




This week, for the "Top Ten Tuesday" linkup, I have decided to apply my new knowledge and understanding, and create a list of the top ten challenges I will face this year with SC.  First, however, I must state that after analysis of us both, I have a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) INTP, while SC has a MBTI of ISTP.  Though these are quite similar, there are a few differences between us that will make for some big challenges for me as a teacher, as I attempt to adapt to SC.

1.  Theoretical vs. factual:  My inclination to indulge in intellectual exploration and theoretical avenues are at cross purposes to SC's desire for solid facts and evidence.  I think this will manifest itself in almost every area, which is why I think it will be the biggest challenge I will face.  It will require me to literally remove myself from the way I think about everything and attempt to see it how SC might perceive it.

2.  Kinesthetic vs. reading/writing:  This challenge is almost as difficult as number 1, because this is another major area where INTP and ISTP personalities differ.  SC will need as much kinesthetic/hands-on activity in each subject area as I can create, but since I am a reading/writing focused learner, I am going to have to do more research and utilize the ideas of others to make this happen.  Luckily, this is one area that I had already observed, so our curriculum plans include programs that have quite a bit of hands-on activities that directly accompany the subjects.

3.  Journey vs. goal:  For an INTP like me, the most important part of learning is the journey.  It does not bother me if I never get to solving the problem as long as the journey is enjoyable.  However, for an ISTP like SC, the most important part is the solution.  This will be a challenge for me to remember not to think only of the journey, but to know there needs to be a concrete and practical outcome that SC needs to reach with each lesson.

4.  Self-interests:  ISTP personalities typically struggle in most school settings because they can be single-minded, only focusing on what interests them.  My challenge here will be to make new subjects and lessons interesting to her.  However, this blends into challenge number 5.

5.  Teacher as obstruction:  When ISTP personalities are presented with information that is not part of their current interest area, they will go around or ignore the teacher completely in order to get to the information they want.  This will be a challenge to both motivate her within her interests, but keep her learning in other areas as well.

6.  Time regulation:  SC already wants to do things when she wants, where she wants, with her own goals in mind.  My challenge will be to help her regulate her learning into realistic day-to-day activities, so that she progresses well in all subject areas.  I also will have the challenge of really getting on a schedule that is manageable for us, as I tend to allow interruptions that do not really need to happen.  I hope to print out an easy-to read graphic schedule for SC so that she can also keep track of what we are doing when. 

7.  Complexity: ISTP personalities learn best when the subjects they are learning are technically complex.  This predisposes them for STEM subjects.  While I have a solid understanding of certain STEM areas, I would not call my knowledge base complex by any means.  The challenge here, though probably not immediately at a K4/1st level, will be to push SC forward in these areas even as she leaves me behind.  At some point, I will have to rely on her self-interest and desire to increase her practical knowledge to guide her toward what she needs to be learning in those areas.

8.  Social issues:  The "I" from ISTP stands for "introvert," which is definitely a characteristic that SC and I both share.  For both of us the challenge here will be to make sure we are making the most of social times, including in our out of the house activities (her dance classes, gymnastics and piano lessons), as well as meeting up with other homeschooling families that live in the area.

9. More social issues:  Though ISTP personalities are introverted, they connect best with people when they are involved in kinesthetic activities together rather than simply a dialogue-based relationship.  At SC's young age, however, she has a hard time understanding personal space, that pushing and shoving are not acceptable, and that she can hurt people.  

10. Have fun!:  Maybe this one should have been at the top.  In everything we do, I need to remember that SC is only four years old, and that she needs even her learning time to be enjoyable.

Any comments, advice or opinions are welcomed.  Don't forget to check out other "Top Ten Tuesday" posts here.

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Curriculum 2012-2013: K4

Since we started to homeschool PreK officially in January, we are really only mid-way through our first  whole year.  However, we have learned quite a bit about what we like, what we do not like, how SC learns, and the direction we want to head, so we will be making some changes and additions for this 2012-2013 year, which I am considering a K4/1st year.  For those who did not read my first post, I will briefly sum up the decisions made and what we have already done as I move into what (I hope) this year will bring.

BIBLE

For Bible lessons we will be continuing with the "Beginner" pages from Bible Study for All Ages.  I really like this program because I am actually reading straight from the Bible to SC, and reading whole chapters, not just what some might consider familiar stories.  It has each reading broken down into five or six blocks to color, with questions and a summary that is very age appropriate.  Then, it has a short story that helps the young student relate it to life, plus a coloring page to go with that story as well.

PHONICS / READING / WRITING / SPELLING

We have already finished Get Ready and are most of the way through Get Set from the Explode the Code series.  Even though SC is really strong on her letters and their sounds, I think it couldn't hurt to finish the Go for the Code book before moving on to Books 1 - 4 of the series.  I have been doing a "letter of the week" along with a read aloud that focuses on that letter as well.  We are also thinking about using the online program if we have extra funds after the rest of our school supplies are purchased for the year.

For reading we have been going through Collection 1 and the K/1st Sight Words Collection from BOB Books.  We will continue with this, plus add in I Can Read!  books that we have and others like that.  For read alouds, I plan to create a list that backs up the history program I have chosen, as well as adding in some classic literature.  SC is fairly jumpy, so we do not get very far when we cuddle up on the couch to read.  My goal is to work our way up to her being able to listen for a thirty-minute session.

We are in the middle of A Reason for Handwriting level K and it has been a very easy introduction for SC to writing.  I do not push her too hard to make the letters perfect, but I do know what she is capable of.  She tends to get silly when she writes (turning her letters into people, adding "babies" for the letters to take care of, adding bugs or monsters for the letters to run from), so only having one letter to focus on each day helps her to get at least a few that are good.  I have started circling the ones that are really good, and she loves that, so she strives to get a few good ones before decorating.  When we are done with level K, we will move on to level A, which has Bible verses to work on as practice.

In conjunction with the Bible verses in A Reason for Handwriting level A is the spelling lessons in A Reason for Spelling level A.  We will not start working on spelling until we can start level A handwriting at the same time.  I am interested to see how this program works together, with the spelling words coming from a story that is based on the Bible verse, which is the verse she will be practicing writing.

HISTORY

Not really liking Before Five in a Row for us, I was in the market for a new main curriculum.  I had a friend who suggested Sonlight as a good literature-based core program.  I looked into that, and had actually decided on it, but as I was searching through the great Well-Trained Mind forums, someone mentioned History Odyssey and I absolutely loved the look of it.  The one problem I was having with Sonlight was that I personally think history needs to be taught from the beginning on, and like all subjects, taught deeply rather than widely.  I have never liked "survey" courses, even when I was in school.  Sonlight's Core A, which is where I felt SC should start, teaches history from the beginning all the way through to WWII.  I couldn't help but wonder how much SC would actually get out of a history that goes that fast.  So, we will be starting Ancients Level 1in September.
  
MATH

We are also halfway through the "Primer" level of Math-U-See, and will start the "Alpha" level.  I really like this math curriculum because it makes so much more sense to me than how I learned even things like addition.  In "Primer" has gently introduced SC to addition, but not in a way that she is counting, but in a conceptual way that she is "knowing."  For example, 2 + 3 = 5 is not 1, 2 plus 3, 4, 5 equals 5, but 2 and 3 together are equal to (or the same as) 5.  I doubt the way I explained that makes any sense, but I am so un-mathematical that I cannot explain it any better.  Anyhow, I am really looking forward to moving her on to Alpha and getting deeper into math.  We will also be adding some Lollipop Logic, mazes and other critical thinking activities.

SCIENCE

Science was another area that I really did not like the way Sonlight blended multiple areas of the sciences together in a wide, rather than deep, focus.  After research on many blogs and forums, I decided that we would give Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy a try for this year.  I have read many, many great reviews, and was able to physically take a look at both the text and the junior notebooking journal, and it looks like it will be perfect for SC's first taste of real science.  We are contemplating getting a membership to the local Natural Science and History Museum so we can take advantage of both the astronomy exhibits and the planetarium, but like the online Explode the Code, it will depend on how much of our budget is left after purchasing supplies.



FRENCH

While I appreciate and understand the reasoning behind the classical learning model to teach Latin so that students may read the great thinkers in the original, for our family, we are going in a different direction.  SC already has very worldly ambitions and loves learning about other places, so we have decided to teach French to her as a beginning second language.  Part of this decision had to do with the fact that my father-in-law is fluent, so we have someone we can pester about things and to practice with.  Part of it had to do with my own desire to learn French, and I think that doing it alongside SC would be great.  So, after much research, we have chosen to use Le Francais Facile! junior level, plus Little Pim dvds from the library and any worksheets or coloring books we can use to supplement with.



MUSIC / PHYSICAL EDUCATION

I am very excited that I just signed up SC for a piano readiness class at a local university.  I had attempted to teach her piano fundamentals on my own, but it had been so long since I had taken lessons myself, I just couldn't keep up with her desire to learn.  After much searching, I finally found this "early education" music class that actually teaches piano (and not simply "music appreciation") to four-year-olds.  SC also takes two dance classes each week, plus also attends a gymnastics class.


If anyone has any questions or wants to offer advice or just their own opinions on any of the choices I have made, I would love to hear from you!

"All this worldly wisdom ..."

"...was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man." - Henry David Thoreau


First, let me introduce myself and give a bit of backstory.  My name is Kate.  I have been married for 7 years to a ridiculously smart Oracle guru (AC), and I am a stay-at-home-mom to a four-year-old little girl (SC) who is sweet/fun/wild/smart/exuberant/difficult.

My ideas about education, and specifically how to educate my daughter, have drastically changed in the past two years as I have gotten to know her, seen what she is/is not capable of, as well as a short stint at teaching in a private school setting.  My own experiences with school contribute as well.  I was moderately advanced in school (pre-AP/AP classes through jr. high and high school), as well as graduating a year early.  As I look back now I am able to see that most of my public-school teachers did a good job (but not great) accommodating me and others at the upper end of the "average" spectrum while attempting to also teach every one else, though some of my teachers had their work cut out for them dealing with behavioral problems and others with serious academic issues.  The teachers I would consider to be great were the few who pushed me toward loving to learn, and encouraged me to figure out how to learn on my own, which eventually morphed into self-supplementation through reading of books.  Lots and lots of books.  All of this reading culminated in receiving two BAs (one in history, one in literature), working toward a teaching certificate, and completing twenty-four hours toward an MS in library science.

Two years ago I was just starting a job teaching high school English (9th-12th) at a local private school, and I was so excited.  I love to read, I wanted my students to love to read, and I thought that showing them how much knowledge was held within the spines of books, they would just "get it" and fall in love with reading.  I had my work cut out for me.  After a year of dealing with parents who did not want to take an active role in their students, but did not want me to push the boundaries, an administration that liked the sound of their mission statement, but not at the literal expense of a few big donor parents, and students who knew how to manipulate both to get what they want (combined with the planning, teaching and grading of four separate levels of high school English), I opted out of teaching.  I left the certification program, and I threw myself into my master's classes.

I also was finally able to spend time with AC and SC again.  We started to make some changes to our lives, like taking a look at the food we were eating and why we were all so unhealthy, making a real attempt to get to church (though we still struggle with this one), and taking real joy in the activities we all do individually and as a family.

This is also when I realized that SC wasn't really getting what she needed at the pre-school we had her in.  When we picked the preschool (right before I started teaching), the owner (an ex-elementary teacher) had created a great curriculum for the kids, based on the eventual goal of our local public school's kindergarten standards.  However, in the year I had been teaching, the owner's focus had changed.  She opened a second location locally, and had to divide her time between the two schools.  Because of this, she had to hire other teachers, most of which were not certified, nor even pursuing certification.  When I started asking questions about how certain skills were being handled (like fine motor skills, pre-reading, pre-math, etc), the answer was always that those things would be addressed "in the pre-k class."  Well, my daughter was yearning for some of these things, and pre-k was more than six months away.

So, last December we made the decision that SC would stay home with me full-time and we would do "preschool" at home.  I have a couple friends who have older children who have started homeschooling and I looked to them (and the internet) for some ideas.  I knew I wanted something that was literature-based, so we picked Before Five in a Row as a main curriculum.  However, I wanted to add a few other things in as well.  The math in BFIAR was less than what Sophia was already capable of (counting to 20, recognizing all shapes), so we added in Math-U-See at the "Primer" level, just to give her something that was both challenging, but had manipulatives she could play with.  I wanted to really read the Bible to her, so I picked up Bible Study for All Ages.  We also started doing a "letter of the week" in conjunction with the phonics books Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code from the Explode the Code series.  She already knew the alphabet and most of the letter sounds, but at this point was not interested in learning to read.  We had the BOB Books "collection 1" ready on hand for when she finally sparked that interest (which actually was at the beginning of this summer).

We have had a great spring and a semi-lazy summer, and we have been getting ready to start back up with our "preschool."  Since we started in January, we still have a semester of math, half the phonics work and technically half the BFIAR to do.  However, I really don't like BFIAR.  I mean, I like the idea of it, being based in literature, and I love the books SC and I have been reading, but I just don't like the rest of it.  It isn't anything "more" than what I could come up with on my own if I spent five minutes thinking up things for each book under each subject category.

So, I decided to look for something different; something that SC would really learn from and enjoy.  And now I am planning a K/1st year that some of would start in September, the rest in October or November (or January, when we move up a level in math), second-guessing whether public school is even the right direction for SC and our family, and trying to figure out what our options really are.  That is what this blog is about - our pursuit of wisdom, both as it applies to SC, but also for myself as a lifelong learner.  Hopefully others can find something on the blog useful as it develops, and if nothing else, my goal is to have a year of K/1st plans and reflection to look back on.