Secular Thursday in Snippets

• Yesterday was kindergarten registration for my county. If the kids went to public school, it would have been the day to register FB. It's weird to think about things in those terms, sometimes, but I do have a game I play in my head from time to time. What I think would have happened with each of the children if they had gone to public school.

EG's path would have gone one of two ways. It's possible she would have learned to sit still, to be quiet, and to please the teacher. She wouldn't cause a fuss, and would blend into the background. Alternatively, her difficulties with spelling and her inability to sit down for more than 5.2 seconds would have had her labeled special education within six months. Not sure which road she would have been on, to be honest.

FB could go two ways as well. He's the kind of kid that a teacher will either love or hate. If he managed to get teachers that loved him, he could in theory have done well at a public school. If he got even one that didn't, though, I suspect he'd be one of those boys that they'd want to diagnose with ADHD. The amusing thing, of course, is that if either of the older two could be considered ADHD, it would be EG. Not FB.

• I ordered the book A World of Faith, sight unseen, as a basic primer on various religions. I was a little nervous, wondering if it would be what I was looking for. I haven't had a chance to read it, but when it came yesterday, the review-blurb on the back? I noticed it was a quote of Jimmy Carter, and I breathed a sigh of relief. If Jimmy says it's all right, I'll probably think it is, too.

• I had the brilliant idea to do a unit on prehistoric life with the kids, focusing specifically on dinosaurs. Because the unit will involve reading and watching DVDs only, I knew it would be something we could do on the weekends and over the summer, very casually. What I didn't anticipate was how hard it would be to find appropriate books for EG to read! I had a ready-made spine for FB (DK's First Dinosaur Encyclopedia), plus ready-made supplemental books (Magic School Bus, Let's Read and Find Out books). I had a good overview book for EG (Dinosaurs), but I wanted a few other things to flesh it out. I finally found a few likely-looking titles on amazon but I don't know, in practice, how they'll go over. I'll post our prehistoric life lesson plans AFTER we've executed them. :)

• Prehistoric life naturally segues into evolution, which is one of the things I hope to have EG cover in some detail next year. Finding books for that is sort of interesting, too. I don't want to overload her with adult-level books, but many of the "middle school level" books don't really go into enough detail. Decisions, decisions.

• I don't really enjoy April Fools' Day. It seems less like a day about having fun and more of a day about making fun of other people, too often. So I'm blogging today, and otherwise will probably go media-silent until we're on the other side of it. I just don't need it.