Dilemmas!

The good news is that I have the vast majority of next year decided upon, even if not purchased or planned. I do have three dilemmas left. Two are regarding FB, and one regarding EG.

EG will finish the All About Spelling series at some point during fifth grade; the exact time will depend when, exactly, Level 6 is released. At that point, I have to decide where to go with regard to spelling.

EG has had a fair amount of difficulty with spelling. I have reason to believe the spelling is not something that will ever come particularly easy to her. She gets easily frustrated by studying spelling. Ideally, whatever we do next will not have "spelling" in the title, and will also not appear to be a rehashing or review of the concepts taught in AAS. One suggestion I have seen mentioned as a follow-up to AAS is Megawords. Looking at the samples for the first book, however, I worry that EG would see it as a little too much of a review, and there's no real way to determine which book in which to place her. Part of me would love to stop formal spelling altogether and focus on the correct spelling of vocabulary words as well as words that she misspells in her writing, but I worry about my own follow through with regards to that plan. Decisions, decisions...

Speaking of spelling, I have to decide where to go with spelling for FB. At some point during his kindergarten year, he's going to be ready to start spelling, and his demand to learn spelling will become impossible to ignore. I have a large amount of the things necessary to use All About Spelling with him, and could easily start him on Level 1. However, All About Spelling is teacher-intensive, and was never my first choice for a spelling curriculum. We turned to it when EG had such difficulty with spelling. A big part of me would desperately like to see if Spelling Workout will work for FB. Yet, I can also appreciate the systematic way that AAS teaches the rules of spelling. Does it matter how systematic the teaching is, as long as the end result is a child that can spell?

Finally, I bought Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding to take a look at it. I was hoping I could use it as a framework of sorts to organize my loose plans for science activities for FB for next year. I planned to use various science kits (primarily the Little Labs from Thames & Kosmos and the Magic School Bus themed ones) along with the Let's Read and Find Out science series and other picture books about science. I still like the latter plan, but after looking at BFSU, I find myself thinking about implementing just it. I intend to follow the rotation in WTM for grammar stage science, so I don't foresee wanting to use BFSU for more than one year. I'm drawn to it, but I'm also very drawn to my informal plan. Since we're starting history early, I'm reluctant to wed myself to yet another actual program.

At this point, I admit I'm considering keeping BFSU until around the time PC turns four or five. Because of her November birthday, she'll have more "pre-first grade" time than the other two have, and we could spend time doing BFSU and more informal things as well. Then at least wouldn't feel like I wasted money buying it and wasted time reading through it. ;) I am still torn about next year for FB, though.

Only three dilemmas left is pretty good, though!