Need advice on materials and books

[ExcitedMama]

My DS is required by his virtual charter school to take a test at the beginning and the end of the year. He's always done well and been above grade by a few levels but this time it's even more of a leap up. He's several grades above and maxed out most of the options for language arts and is reading at a high school level. Math is more of a 5th grade level. With math I feel ok with materials. We've been doing MIF and Miquon and CWP and some logic. I'm planning to add in BA. With LA I'm feeling like I should do more. I just have AAS, FLL, WWE and ELTL. I did get some VP lit guides too. I wanted to do BW but it looks too easy for him. What should I add that is more challenging? Right now everything is easy and it's really more of a penmanship lesson than anything else.

 

Should I require him to read certain books? Or do anything? He reads all the time but I don't make him read from anything or do anything more. I do make him read aloud for a little bit but that's it.

[Jackie]

I don't think you *need* to do more, but my LA-loving 7yo daughter tests similarly to your son and is enjoying Brave Writer, Michael Clay Thompson, and participating in the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program. Brave Writer and NaNoWriMo are both very adjustable, so "level" doesn't apply in the same way; I'm pretty sure that's why they work well for us. MCT is more challenging, and has required her to stretch a good bit, and she loves it.

 

She also did a literature class from Athena's last fall, and that was a good fit for her. The spring class didn't fit our schedule, so she'll do that one this coming spring if it works for us.

[ExcitedMama]

Thanks Jackie! I didn't realize NaNoWriMo had a young writer option, it looks great, thanks! He loves writing so I'm excited about that. I don't really understand MCT. Do I start with Islands? How do you use BW? That's another one that looks great but the samples seem too simple. What's Athena?

[Dmmetler]

http://www.athenasacademy.com/mod/page/view.php?id=22

 

My DD did a lot of classes there, and is now a junior instructor :). The literature, writing, and vocabulary classes are all excellent (in general, if it's an English or History class, DD's taken it).

[slackermom]

My kid also liked the Athena's writing classes. 

We used Excavating English, since we both enjoy "history of" stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Excavating-English-Ruth-Johnston/dp/0982537735

With MCT in grades 4 and 5, we used Grammar Town, the two Caesar's English books, and the Time Trilogy literature series. 

Our kid was also a constant reader at that age, so I felt anything more than that was overkill.

[SoCal_Bear]

My kiddo enjoys Athena's as well...though we are more on the science side of things. He has also enjoyed the literature classes there as well. 

[Jackie]

Thanks Jackie! I didn't realize NaNoWriMo had a young writer option, it looks great, thanks! He loves writing so I'm excited about that. I don't really understand MCT. Do I start with Islands? How do you use BW? That's another one that looks great but the samples seem too simple. What's Athena?

 

With the NaNoWriMo YWP, there are free workbooks you can download in advance that lead the kid through plot development and character development. They've definitely been the part that most helped stretch my daughter a bit!

 

For MCT, I generally suggest starting with Island. It probably won't feel like a big stretch for him, as it's pretty gentle. But then Town is a big stretch, and having my daughter already engaged with the series before ramping up the depth and writing requirements has been crucial here. Island gives a solid intro to grammar, sentence structure, the concept of word roots, and poetry. Especially the poetry, which I think is the most challenging book of the level. The author clearly loves words, language, and writing, and that love just comes out in this curric and I think it attracts language-loving kids for that reason. MCT is written for kids who learn by understanding huge concepts, but don't necessarily need the small details. I've been using MCT, and then the occasional workbook or other assignment to clean up details when needed.

 

Brave Writer is really hard for me to explain, but I'll give it a shot. The Lifestyle is what I fall back on, no matter what else I'm using. If you read through the links on the left side of this page, you can know everything that goes into that side of things without having to buy a single product. I reread through that stuff myself periodically just to remind myself and to touch base with ideas that have fallen off my radar. BW treats language as more holistic and natural than anything else I've seen, and that meshes well with my kid, who intuitively knows more about language than I could really teach her.

 

If you wanted BW products, your kid would be using Partnership Writing plus either Quiver of Arrows or The Arrow. Quiver/Arrows are a copywork and literary concept product - each one is meant to last four weeks, focus on one book, supply regular copywork/dictation, and discuss one literary concept. For my DD, this mostly comes down to copywork because she somehow learned all the literary elements they discuss without being taught them. Sometimes I use these, sometimes I don't. Partnership Writing gives ten month-long writing projects. These blend research skills, creative writing skills, nonfiction writing skills, a bit of artistic presentation... They're adaptable as to how deep you want to take them, so a single project can be done quite simply or go very in depth. (Disclaimer: We did Jot it Down, and I have PW on the shelf, but we haven't started it yet, so I can't give feedback on the individual assignments.)

[Crimson Wife]

Michael Clay Thompson alternated with Don Killgallon. MCT is good for teaching the grammar and then Killgallon is more applied. It also helps with giving the child more time to navigate the leaps up in writing between the MCT levels

 

 

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