Review: Laying Down the Rails for Children

My copy of Laying Down the Rails for Children arrived yesterday and I am so happy I could just melt.
I do believe it was only a few days ago that I posted a blog bemoaning the fact that it took a lot of legwork to get habit training going in any kind of an intellectual manner. I have to research and pre-read the stories I plan to use to illustrate the habit we are studying.
I have to come up with games and ideas.

The complete set of books.

The checklist in the back of "laying down the rails."

My habit-learners

The book "Laying Down the Rails" has served as inspiration and as a checklist for what I should be doing as a parent, but not necessarily as a curriculum. And yet as I have worked with it over the years and explored other habit-training curricula, I've been constantly drawn back to it for so many different reasons, chief among which is that it truly is the most faithful to CM, faithful to my ideas about morals, religion, the intellectual life, physical health, etc. It is very complete.

The new books are a set of two, covering ALL of the habits mentioned by CM in her own books. The first page for each habit is a series of fill-in-the-blank type lines that ask questions about where to go for inspiration. They are useful for brainstorming ideas.
After that are some lesson plans that include stories, games, ideas, and poems. It's perfect, and exactly what I had been doing, only basically done for me... which means it will be worth it to you if your time is worth some money, and not if you prefer to keep the money and spend the time.

A way to use it is just to spend a month on each habit. Going down the checklist, pick habits you know you need to start with, and then just attack them.

The new books COULD serve as a stand-alone, although they do refer to the original book for definitions of habits, etc. I strongly recommend getting and using both! Enjoy