Loony for Lentils

I am a fiend for offbeat curriculum supplements, a avid collector of owl pellets, tinkertoys, archeology digs, and giant inflatable solar system models. We broke our own geodes. I have a three foot foam velocoraptor on top of my entertainment armoire. My kids color giant historical maps and I actually hang them up. My shower curtain has the water cycle printed on it (well, ok it's in the kid's bathroom, but my bathroom has the bean sprouts and venus flytraps.) As I type this a hideous (Don't tell Dodo) paper-mache bust of King Sargon of Mesopotamia is inches away, glaring malevolently at me. I actually like it.

I'm a freak. I'll admit it.

There are few things in life I enjoy more ( reading and occasionally my husband) than disovering new edutainment with my kids. Fruit bowl-algebra for six year olds made me positively giddy, and I can't even speak without gushing about Schoolhouse Rock or The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. In my house learning is fun about 90 percent of the time, and the other ten percent is usually only un-fun because I didn't find quite the right resource, or presented it at the wrong time.

Now, I can hear you scoffing out there. Oh her kids are little, you think. Of course ABCs can be fun. Not to brag, but Dodo's levels range from late third to sixth so if I can do it so can you. "But, fun?!" You say. Multiplication, handwriting, Latin for crying out loud...interesting, perhaps, but fun??!!
Scoff not. Rosetta Stone is fun for any language and I am retaining way more than I did after two years of scrounging B's in high school, this program teaches you to think in the foriegn language which is amazing to me, and if my little DoDo can scare people at Walmart by speaking Latin ala The Sixth Sense so could yours. And Rosetta Stone is a high-school level program used by the peace-corps to train recruits! And it' s still fun! Expensive, but well worth it.
I could go on all day, but I did have a point...no, not the one on top of my head you mean, mean people...

Where was I? Ah, ok.

So anyway, caught up in my orgiastic frenzy of summer preparation I happened upon a review of TOPS lentil science. The review was not complimentary, but did that stop me? Did the fact that the reviewer did not even go through with the program because it was an absurdly complicated amount of preparation deter me?
Are you kidding? Lentil Science??!! Lentils? Science? Recyclables? True Scientific process, question based experiments heavy on concrete math concepts in a convienient box and jobcard format, using LENTILS of all things? Have you ever heard anything so divine?

I bought both books (primary and intermediate, grades K-6), with the kit.

I spent no less than ten hours doing prep. And by ten hours I mean TEN WORKING HOURS. Copying, folding, taping, labeling, scavenging, calibrating...on and on. Quite literally, my hands were sore from the scissors. I thought I would never finish, but I was determined to prove that reviewer wrong, so with tremendous courage and commitment (I am a former marine, advanced discipline training came in handy during this ordeal. Yes, I am saying this just to impress you. No, I'm not lying. What do you mean they don't let nerdy midgets...) by day two I was knee-deep in recyclables and photocopies, not to mention three pounds of lentils.
I wanted to cry, but I made it through. Somehow. Saint Legume, the patron saint of Lentils, must have come to my aid.

After all that buildup you expect me to say the kids hated it, right? Or that it didn't make sense, or was missing something. Murphy's law and all that. Sorry to dissapoint you, but sometimes you get lucky and hard work really does pay off. I am even more in love with the stupid lentils than ever! Ha!
If you can stomach the headache of prep, this is a very intelligent program for elementary-age . Strong, concrete math, scientific process, high interest. I mean, my kids were frothing at the mouth to get into that program after watching me tear my hair out for two days and not letting them near anything, and to a kid a box full of lentils is intrinsically interesting in itself, even without all the cool cups, magnets, funnels, screens, and other doohickies.
They have already done about seven of the job cards,(some are way easier than others) and my son, Scote the Goat, begged to use it today (Saturday) and was absorbed for about forty minutes. Forty minutes. Begged.

And when you really think about it, isn't that priceless? Some things really are worth working for.

Then again, I have to go vaccum lentils out of the carpet again instead of finishing the last chapter of Harry Potter 6. Stupid lentils.
-E.H.