School in a Box!

Today there was much excitement in the house as FedEx rung the doorbell and we found a big HEAVY box waiting for, "Mr. Bright Gillispie." Ha! When you enroll in Calvert School you learn about "school in a box." Every year Calvert students look forward to receiving their box, full of all of the cool items they will need throughout the year. I thought it might be fun to start a tradition of having the kids take a picture sitting on their box. If they continue with Calvert (which we hope, if it's a good fit) it will be neat to see their bodies grow and the box stay the same size!
As you can see, we are not just talking about student books and teacher guides. We have everything from math manipulatives, to yarn, to pipe cleaners, to a pencil sharpener! In addition to the supplies and school books there are also around 30 story books that we will use with each one of 10 themes throughout the year. We will need to rearrange some things in our classroom so that I have adequate storage for all of this (x2, since Kendi's box comes Monday)! It is a great problem to have.

Although I haven't started teaching yet, I am extremely impressed with this company. From day 1 they have been professional, timely, and very communicative. The materials come with explicit directions for use. There will be no question how to use all of these things, and how to understand each part of the daily lessons. [This is something we can already tell is very lacking in the program we chose for the big kids.]

Having said all of these wonderful happy things about Calvert, I'm glad that we have only chosen it for the little ones this year. This program is going to take some getting used to. It will be MUCH more time-intensive than the more web-based programs we could have chosen. I feel like just doing it with the little ones this year will be a good way to get my feet wet. If I can handle it with them, then maybe next year the big ones can change over. We shall see. In the meantime, the box was certainly fun to open!

Love,
Anita