MCT Grammar Voyages? How do you implement it?

[Ginevra]

I bought Grammar Voyages and I like the way it looks. I'm a little uncertain, though, about what the lessons are supposed to be like, exactly. Am I just reading the information to him from the TM while he follows along in the student book? How do I know how many pages to do? It's all just a bit nebulous for me; I'm a big fan of straight-forward lesson plans.

[LMD]

grammar voyage is to read through, yes. It's more a read through and discuss as you go deal. I would go by time rather than pages, but it won't take that long to read through. Dd basically read it through herself for the most part, but she had the background of island/town - where we did the read together and discuss thing.

 

The practical work comes after you finish reading it, you practice the grammar in Practice Voyage and Essay Voyage - essay voyage is laid out much more traditionally with lesson numbers and assignments.

[HeatherL]

We were dropouts this year :(  I bought the whole set, sat in on Michael Clay Thompson's lectures at convention and still couldn't really figure out what to do with the program.  We read through most of the grammar book and my son could do some of the 4 level diagramming, but he had to keep looking stuff up because he would forget the names of different things.  Also, the story passages made no sense in the big picture.  Eventually, I just didn't see the purpose of the program.  We finally just stopped doing it.  I still have NO IDEA what to do with the vocab book.  It asks questions about words that are not in that lesson and then the lessons themselves have little to do with the questions that follow.  Ughh, and I spent so much money on the program.  Darn conventions... where the new, shiny books/curriculum are so tempting.

Edited May 11, 2017 by HeatherL

[mom2scouts]

We were dropouts this year :(  I bought the whole set, sat in on Michael Clay Thompson's lectures at convention and still couldn't really figure out what to do with the program.  We read through most of the grammar book and my son could do some of the 4 level diagramming, but he had to keep looking stuff up because he would forget the names of different things.  Also, the story passages made no sense in the big picture.  Eventually, I just didn't see the purpose of the program.  We finally just stopped doing it.  I still have NO IDEA what to do with the vocab book.  It asks questions about words that are not in that lesson and then the lessons themselves have little to do with the questions that follow.  Ughh, and I spent so much money on the program.  Darn conventions... where the new, shiny books/curriculum are so tempting.

 

These books are really designed to be done with lots of parent/teacher support. When my kids do the 4 level analysis, we read the sentence and work through every word together. I often have to explain things and I give reminders and hints over and over until they are completely understood and recognized. The passages are illustrations of the concepts and are sometimes multi-layered with grammar, vocabulary, and interesting word play.

[Incognito]

We were dropouts this year :(  I bought the whole set, sat in on Michael Clay Thompson's lectures at convention and still couldn't really figure out what to do with the program.  We read through most of the grammar book and my son could do some of the 4 level diagramming, but he had to keep looking stuff up because he would forget the names of different things.  Also, the story passages made no sense in the big picture.  Eventually, I just didn't see the purpose of the program.  We finally just stopped doing it.  I still have NO IDEA what to do with the vocab book.  It asks questions about words that are not in that lesson and then the lessons themselves have little to do with the questions that follow.  Ughh, and I spent so much money on the program.  Darn conventions... where the new, shiny books/curriculum are so tempting.

 

It is a certain style - either you like it or you don't.  We love it.  I don't suppose you want to sell that set, do you?  I like having two student books if I can find them used (I already have one).

[LMD]

These books are really designed to be done with lots of parent/teacher support. When my kids do the 4 level analysis, we read the sentence and work through every word together. I often have to explain things and I give reminders and hints over and over until they are completely understood and recognized. The passages are illustrations of the concepts and are sometimes multi-layered with grammar, vocabulary, and interesting word play.

yes, we usually do them together too. After they're comfortable with it, I let them try on their own but I always check it. Some of them are hard!