My Long Awaited Oak Meadow 1st Grade Arrived

My long awaited Oak Meadow grade 1 came this week...and the box looked like this:






Everything was okay inside but it gave me a worry.  I had a chance to look over the new grade 1 and have decided to send it back.  Yes...that's right.  Send it back.  I have the old one which I posted about here  

I like the old one better because there is less "do this on this day" sort of thing and really the only difference is that the pictures are colored now.  The science has been updated and I don't really like the let's track the moon phases thing.  We already do a "waldorf" calendar type of thing which they recommend in both so I don't see the need for the added cost.  Plus as I was looking ahead in science the old grade 1 does more things that we would do vs. the new one which seems more main-stream type of stuff.

On to our week.  It's was lots of grumping going on around here this last week.  We've had a new cat and to say the kids are obessessed with the cat is an understatement.  It had gotten to the point where I was really stressed out dealing with them about this and both hubby and I told the kids that anytime you have something that disrupts the peace of the house like this it may be time to let it go.  So far we still have the cat and the kids are calming down now.

There was other drama as well when the kids decided to go into the forest...alone.  I'd love to tell you that a wonderful pedagogial (sp) story fixed this but the weird thing was we had been doing Golden-Hair and the Three Bears for the letter B so they knew the forest wasn't the best place to be alone. 

And the big hit of the week?  Gems.  ????  Ya, I bought Gems for the Math Gnome stories and the kids have played with them non-stop.    I know...pics....here ya go...there's ALOT....you're warned:

 

Cozy bed they made to listen to sparkle stories...

 

crazy warm weather...dandelions...in FALL??

 

 Catching leaves falling...

 

Pop bottle self watering pots

 

The "nest" they made complete with steps

 

spring wild onions...IN FALL??   weird.

 

more Gem madness...this one is mosiac book...brought on a great discussion of the art of mosaic tile