MCT Magic Lens question

[quelques_fleur]

My son is entering 7th grade in the fall.  I found MCT's curricula later in our homeschool and he just wrapped up the Town level.  He also had a year of Classical Conversations Essentials of the English Language this past school year.  I plan to skip the Voyage level for the grammar/practice books and move right into Magic Lens 1.  Would you say this would be a seamless transition for a child of his age who has gone through the first two levels and has a year of an in-depth analysis of grammar from the CC program? 

[GeoKitty]

Yes.

 

But Magic Lens is kind of annoying. Especially the verb tenses.

Voyage is more fun.... but very similar to Town.

 

The practice books are great though.

 

We are currently deciding if we should do Magic Lens 2, or just the practice books.... sigh

[daijobu]

I actually preferred the Grammar Voyage level to Magic Lens, which we gave up on midway through the first book.  Grammar isn't my strength, though, and I thought it was confusing.  

 

Don't skip the Caesar's English books, though, as I think they are the best of the MCTLA bunch.  

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

We just finished up Town, and we are planning to do Voyage, but we are entering 6th.  I have been told that it is a fairly big jump from Voyage to Magic Lens.  In fact, MCT came out with a transitional level between Voyage and Magic Lens because of this.  Also, wouldn't you want to follow up Caesar's English 1 with Caesar's English 2 or are you just ramping up the grammar?  Perhaps if you are going to skip Voyage, you could go into the transitional one they developed (Level 4 now.)  I think it's called the Literature level.  I agree that the grammar can seem light sometimes, but I think it is reinforced in the writing to make it more solidified.

 

I guess it would depend on how much you want to ramp up his workload.

[quelques_fleur]

Geokitty, Why are the verb tenses bothersome? How much of a leap is it to Voyage from the Town level? My son is ready for a bit more meat than what we are getting from the Town level currently.

 

We *love* Caeser's English and I was planning on moving on to the second one. Hmm... didn't realize there was that much of a jump from voyage to magic lens, AdventuresinHimeschooling. I do like how the vocab words we are studying in that level show up in his practice grammar sentences.

Edited June 10, 2017 by quelques_fleur

[GeoKitty]

Town to Voyage was an easy transition.

Magic Lens level is much harder. The vocab is really difficult. My 8th grade son needed to slow it down, and then we switched to a different program. My gifted sixth grader loves learning 25 stems a week... and we do all the exercises. We still have the poetry book to do, not sure if we will do the writing book though. Magic Lens has some really good stuff in it. But the verb tenses, for instance, are quickly described and then there are pages of exercises which are just plain hard. I had to pull out a different grammar book to try to explain it better. I guess I found there just wasn't enough teaching.

[Bocky]

My vote is that yes, he could go easily into Magic Lens 1 without having to complete Voyage or the new level after Voyage. It sounds like the levels you have completed have gone well. My understanding is that Magic Lens 1 where you'd start with a middle schooler, whether they have done MCT LA before or not.

 

I taught Island through Voyage to my daughters. It didn't click for my older daughter, so part way through Town I switched her to Rod and Staff. My younger dd enjoyed it and did well with it. We moved away from MCT (mostly to try other writing programs, because I am terrible in wanting to try all the shiny things), but this year (7th) have come back to use the Magic Lens 1 level.

 

I think there are some students for whom MCT's approach just really works. My dd loves reading and creative writing, and picks up language concepts easily. We actually joke around and laugh a lot as we do Magic Lens and the Word Within the Word, which possibly makes us weird... One other thought: MCT also works for us because I find it easy to teach. I'm a grammar nerd.

 

Hope this helps, and good luck with 8th. I am thinking hard about our 8th grade line up too.

[quelques_fleur]

Town to Voyage was an easy transition.

Magic Lens level is much harder. The vocab is really difficult. My 8th grade son needed to slow it down, and then we switched to a different program. My gifted sixth grader loves learning 25 stems a week... and we do all the exercises. We still have the poetry book to do, not sure if we will do the writing book though. Magic Lens has some really good stuff in it. But the verb tenses, for instance, are quickly described and then there are pages of exercises which are just plain hard. I had to pull out a different grammar book to try to explain it better. I guess I found there just wasn't enough teaching.

 

This is where I believe the year we spent in CC Essentials will fill those gaps for me.  I have a pretty solid understanding of all the intricacies of grammar because of it.  However, I'm wondering if it would be challenging to work through the grammar practice sentences in Magic Lens series and be exposed to the Word Within a Word vocab while we are working through Ceaser's English II.  I definitely saw the benefit of his vocab words showing up in a practice sentence for grammar.  It helped him solidify his understanding of the vocabulary words and incorporate it in his everyday speech.  Hmm...I'm flip flopping a lot just reading everyone's comments!

Edited June 12, 2017 by quelques_fleur

[quelques_fleur]

Thanks for all the help ladies. I decided not to skip ahead and go to the next level as expected because I will definitely be doing Ceaser's English II.

[Targhee]

Magic Lens verb chapter was eye opening. We also skipped Voyage, but we skipped years (i.e. We did Town in 5th, nothing in 6th, and ML in 7th). Aside from the verb chapter, it was pretty seamless. There is simply a lot to learn about verbs in there!

[kbutton]

Would someone mind telling me what Magic Lens covers regarding verbs? One thing about MCT that I haven't liked up through the literature level is that we don't do much with verbs--one of my kids has some language issues and has trouble changing tenses, etc., and in general, I think it's nice to have a good grasp of verb forms before learning about verbals. I think it's easier to recognize and figure out verbals when you know more about verbs.

 

I am amused that I've decided to take a year off MCT over verbs (plus a few eclectic reasons), and here Magic Lens sprouts a bunch of information about verbs...(insert semi-grumpy grunt, lol!) (We are going to use some version of Warriner's, if anyone is curious.)

 

While we are on it, does Magic Lens talk about types of clauses (noun, adverb), essential/non-essential clauses (restrictive/non-restrictive), and things like that as well? I feel like we bump into usage issues with a lot of things before they come up in MCT, and then I fumble to explain the usage without the grammar background to give my kids something to latch onto.

 

I love MCT's whole to parts approach, but I really wish he had a published scope and sequence and perhaps his own reference manual to use with upper levels. I really need a sneak peak, and the samples online are just not that extensive (probably for good reason).