Scaling Back

To make a long story really short - at our last local CM meeting, we discussed pressuring kids to read and keep up with math before they're really ready, and the later problems that can cause, and the fact that some people (including The Trivium/The Bluedorns) feel like math shouldn't be started until age 10. So I re-assessed what I'm doing with Miss M (just turned 8 years old, doing AO Year 1), and I decided to cut down on her math.

We're doing Math-U-See, and since we do a CM co-op Fridays, we have a four-day week of "lessons." I've been trying to squeeze a lesson per week into four days (and a week of a scheduled Bible reading). I decided to just stop doing that. It might take us closer to two years to finish the math-U-See book, but that's okay. In fact, I think Steven Demme says he planned for each book to take a couple of years. So now we can do the concept presentation one day (which, for us, means watching the video together), and then start on work sheets the next day, and go ahead and and take a day or two to do the word problems from the teacher's manual 9which I had been skipping!) Yesterday, I let her play with measuring cups to learn how many pints are in a quart. I feel more relaxed, and I think that's appropriate for her, where she is. She has in no way reached a developmental point where fighting over "getting school done" would be a good idea.

The Bible thing is taking some getting used to. The Bible we're using has the readings all laid out and labeled "Monday" "Tuesday," etc., and it's unsettling to see the "Wednesday" label on Monday's reading. (But I suppose I can learn to be flexible!)