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02/23/2004 Archived Entry: "wasted time"

I spent most of today wasting my time- and not in a good way. We all went over to an educational supply store this morning so I could pick up the spelling curriculum I wanted to get. The place is such a fabulous store and loads of fun to take kids. Chris followed the little one around while I looked for the book. Boy am I glad I didn't order it sight unseen! It was totally horrible and I can't imagine subjecting my child to it. One of the methods had to do with writing words one letter at a time in little boxes. The size of the boxes was supposed to correlate with the size of the letters. So there would be a list of words at the top and one of them would be "at" Then there would be two boxes next to each other, one a small square and the other a taller rectangle. The child was supposed to recognize the pattern of the size of the boxes and know to choose the word "at" for that section. I still haven't figured out how that teaches spelling. I'm sure it's worked for some kids, but it's so not what I'm looking for. Anyway, I spent the next half hour going through all their different spelling books and none of them were what I wanted. So I left with a rather dejected look on my face.
After home and lunch, I decided we would take Chris to work so I could go check out a few more stores. First we drove out to Upland to another educational supply place. I always like going back to that area since we used to live there. It is so interesting to see all the changes that have been made. ::sigh:: I always miss living there when I'm visiting, I only seem to remember the good and none of the bad. Kind of like how people view old girlfriends/ boyfriends. In any case, the store wasn't worth the trip. Although I did pick up a couple grammar work books since I'm not happy with the curriculum I had planned on using. I think I may have bought them just to buy them though and they may not work for us. Oh, and I got Tabi a small American flag that she begged me to buy.
So, after that fruitless stop, off we went to a bookstore that I had heard about. It was supposedly really cool and even had a homeschool section! Well, never trust a non-homeschooler for their opinion on what constitutes a "homeschool section." It was two small shelves worth of books such as "Homeschooling for Dummies" and "What your 4th grader needs to know." Valuable in their own right, but not for me. I don't like books on how to homeschool. I prefer books that I can actually use in our lessons. The only thing that was even remotely like that was the oft-mentioned "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." Oy. The place was decorated beautifully, I'll give them that. But their selection was a bit on the small side. Tabitha did find two books she wanted though, so it wasn't a total loss.
At this point, I had been planning on going home. But not finding that which I had been searching was just bugging me. So I decided to hit Barnes and Noble. I went to a different one that the one we went to last week in the hopes of finding the Gifted and Talented Reading book for 6-8 year olds. Once again, disappointment was all I found. Their workbook section was a disgrace. It was nothing but Spectrum books and others like that designed to help children pass tests. Considering the way I feel about testing children, especially young ones, in order to secure school funding, I was less than pleased with what I found. Again, I let the child find two books and I left with nothing for me. When we got to the car I was inconvenienced with some bozo's parking job which made it nearly impossible to buckle Tabitha into her booster seat (The bozo would be me, shhhhh).
I was in quite the foul mood by then. We made a soda and chocolate chip cookie run to help ease my poor spirits. We then came home to find a shipment of Barbie books waiting for the child. That makes 8 books she got today! She loved the Barbie books because they are chapter books, but also have pictures so she's not overwhelmed with facing pages upon pages of small type.
We tried to do lessons, but I don't think either of us were in the right frame of mind, so I cut them very short. Tabitha decided to take a bubble bath while I cooked our oh-so-gourmet meal of mac n' cheese, veggie nuggets and strawberries. Right now she's reading a bit while I try to unwind.
As for the spelling, I'm going to do what I thought of a few days ago and just go back to the core basics of the phonemes. I'll make my own lesson plans and I think we'll both be much happier than with anything I could have bought. Of course, when I told the child we were going to start working on her spelling, her response was "I know how to spell; C-A-T cat. See?" Classic Tabitha, I tell ya.