Have you used LLFTLOTR?

[dkholland]

could you give me an estimate of how long the lessons take? Also, are we to complete the "Unit studies" in one day? I was looking at the suggested schedule and feel like there is no way we will complete it all in one school year! I am a "complete IT" type of girl! My ds is 8th grade this year, a strong reader and writer and loves LOTR.

Thanks!

[Rockhopper]

Which schedule are you looking at? 

 

We're getting ready to start  after Labor Day. I've printed off a suggested schedule from the homescholar website for planning purposes; are you looking at the same thing?

[dkholland]

There is a suggested schedule in the TE on pg 16 (pretty sure its the same as the online). On day 28 it says to do Unit study One. It covers pages 143-157 in the student text with tons of small print reading about ancient classics (that I guess we don't read), and then two pages of questions, plus writing assignments. This would normally take us a week to cover! Just wondering if anyone has already done these Unit sutdies and how you worked them in to complete the program in one school year. We may not get to the end, or we will have to sacrifice some of the unit studies. 

 

Rockhopper..what is your plan?

thanks!

[Lori D.]

It really depends on how you plan on doing the program:

 

- Doing all of the suggested writing assignments -- or are you doing something else for writing?

- Doing all the "busywork" parts of fill-in-the-blank comprehension questions and vocabulary -- or skipping them?

- Writing out answers to the discussion questions -- or doing them orally aloud together?

 

If you are skipping some of the above and doing some work orally, that will likely reduce your time to an average of 4 to 5 hours a week.

 

If you plan on doing all the work, including all writing assignments, then plan on spending an average of 5 to 6 hours a week. The 12 units comes out needing to accomplish one unit every three weeks. Some units only take 1-2 days (1-2 hours), some will take all week, or maybe two weeks if you just want to have to add only a little time to the schedule.

 

 

FWIW, here's our experience:

 

We skipped the writing assignments (did separate writing program that we scheduled separately), we skipped the "busywork", and we did the chapter notes and discussion questions aloud together. Roughly, we spent about 4 hours a week on LLftLotR:

 

- 1 to 1.5 hours/week = read 2 chapters in the books

- 1 to 1.5 hours/week = go through the study guide material for the 2 chapters

- 1 to 4 hours every 3 weeks = complete one of the twelve units

 

We typically read the 2 chapters in the evenings on Sun/Mon or Mon/Tues, and did the corresponding study guide material for those chapters during school hours on the day following the chapter (Mon/Tues or Tues/Wed). As far as the 12 units of material: some units take more time than others. The shorter ones, we would do in 2 days, and would schedule to finish the chapters and study guide by Tues., and so we would have Wed. & Thurs. to focus on the unit. If the unit needed more time, then we just spread it out, spending 20-30 min/day on it until it was done.

 

Hope that helps. Enjoy your journey through Middle Earth! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Murrayshire]

Following.......as we are in week two of LLftLotR.....

 

We are mainly following the suggested schedule in the TM, but I have made considerable changes, sometimes spreading a lesson into two days. My dd hasn't been bothered by the book work yet. If it becomes drawn out & starts to seem like busy work, we'll slack off on those by just going over the literary readings & questions.

 

From what I remember about our schedule, I have her completing a Unit Study over the course of 3-5 days for now. Some of the longer ones could take more than a week.

I would suggest to "play it by ear" and see how your dc works with it. With all the other subjects scheduled, LLftLotR can be a bit much towards the middle to end. I am hopeful that we will finish it this school year, but if we don't then it will just fall over to the next year!

 

I see that Lori D. has responded......so that's most likely all you need! Her posts have been extremely helpful to me!

[dkholland]

Thanks Lori and Murryshire! That is exactly what I wanted to know. I do have a separate writing curriculum so I may skip most of the writing. It seems like a lot of material, so we will play it by ear and see how much we can cover in a week.

Thanks! 

[EndOfOrdinary]

We had read or had significant exposure to most all of the classics listed in the classics portion.  For those that we didn't, I went with YouTube and audio versions.  In the end, the Unit Study stuff would take anywhere from three days to a week.  This put the schedule a bit longer, but it was not that big of a deal since the point was to really explore the stories. 

 

I think you should consider the goal of the curriculum.  For us it was an exercise in novel study and really looking at how an author constructs his work.  For others I know, it was very important that it fit the timetable because the goal was to complete the trilogy in one year.  The timetable was going to stress my son out (he is a bit OCD with lists and has some perfection issues).  We threw out the timetable and just went with approximately one chapter or twenty pages a day.