annegables
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Posts posted by annegables
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47 minutes ago, cintinative said:
I definitely need to check out that book. I am not *great* at finding themes, but I could pick out passages that represented rationalism when asked to look for them. My 7th grader had to get my help. 😃 Now, if you had asked me to name the themes, I would not have come up with rationalism. LOL.
To quote you again... If you are Christian (or not and want to read a classic Christian book), I recommend The Screwtape Letters for helping to find themes. The chapters are really short and themes are explicitly laid out as Screwtape and Wormwood discuss the nature of humans. Oh, snap - that's what materialism looks like! Thanks, Screwtape.
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1 hour ago, Lori D. said:
Yes, podcasts, lecture series, Lit. guides, etc. can be a GREAT sources of background info about an author/times, provide ideas of "what to look for while reading", and have questions to help you springboard into discussion when you make a "DIY" course. 😄Gah. I feel so silly. This thread has been a big light bulb moment for me. I have educated myself on some of the Great Books in a meaningful way, and I dont know why I didn't connect that with how I want to educate my son until this post. Good grief. I just kept looking at these Great Courses type classes and thinking that I wanted that for my son, except more how I did it for myself. Normally I am not this slow on the uptake.😜
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37 minutes ago, cintinative said:
I definitely need to check out that book. I am not *great* at finding themes, but I could pick out passages that represented rationalism when asked to look for them. My 7th grader had to get my help. 😃 Now, if you had asked me to name the themes, I would not have come up with rationalism. LOL.
It has chapters like: "When in doubt, It's from Shakespeare", "...Or The Bible", "It's more than just rain or snow", "Is that a symbol", "Never stand next to the hero", "If she comes up, it's baptism", "Yes, she's a Christ figure, too", and "It's never just heart disease...and rarely just illness". This book was helpful and funny. I got to see so many things I had missed in books I have read.
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3 hours ago, Lang Syne Boardie said:
As far as sentiment, re: used items:
People have different values. Some people might value a new item for baby, brand name, from Von Maur in the shopping mall. Other people might think that the brand name, new item is gorgeous and very nice in every way...but when they look at it, they see another mother in a different country, sewing it in a sweatshop. To these people, a non-homemade, non-heirloom item that is in very good condition seems of far greater value to give, because they are lovingly extended the life of this entirely usable garment, thus clothing baby while honoring the seamstress who was not honored in any other way.
THIS is how the world needs to change.
I am not saying to give a milk-stained onesie as a gift at a baby shower, no matter how poor. I am saying that a high quality item that has proved its lasting durability, by surviving the use of one child and still being in very good condition, should be valued.
Thank you for saying this better than I could. I far prefer used items as gifts in almost every circumstance. I think about the economically disadvantaged people who might have made the item. I think about all the waste. I think about the limited life span. And most importantly, I enjoy looking at the stuff I have and seeing my story weaved together with the previous owners'. I should add that I think these things and I am not very sentimental nor super hippy. I just dont like new stuff.
I also really dislike showers and managed to not have any for my 3 kids. I dislike being the center of attention with receiving gifts. The entire experience is so uncomfortable for me; I cringe just thinking about it.
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8 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:
One of my absolute favorite memories from all my yrs of homeschooling is an Anne of Green Gables study I did with my dd when she was in 7th grade. We traveled through literature with Anne and read what she was reading. That was the yr my dd fell in love with epic poetry and bought an 1800s edition of Marmion with her own money. She memorized Edinburgh after Flodden that she recited for us just bc she wanted to. Edinburgh after Flodden is long! And, oh my, she would quote King Lear just as dramatically as Anne (I'll never forget Cordelia!!!)
Literature offers so many ways to study with great interest and joy that it makes me sad to see dull as a word connected to it.
For our Anne study, I bought Where the Brook and River Meet as a source for ideas and then pulled out what appealed and added more where she wanted. Here is a link where I describe what we did. (She is now a jr Russian and French major about to start an accelerated 5th yr masters in library sciences and information systems. Anne made her fall in love with languages and literature.)
I first encountered the Anne books as an adult. I consider her a personal friend as those books have helped me navigate some of my adult milestones. It is also where I first really learned about WWI (all my high school history stopped at the Civil War). Those stories got into my bones and shaped me. For years I would read those books by candlelight, as an almost sacred ceremony.
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8 hours ago, cintinative said:
My now 8th grader did WHA's GC1 in 7th grade. He was a strong reader, and I wanted him to have the experience of an online class. I was *not* knowledgeable of the books. I did ask lots of questions of the teachers and even one of the parents and felt confident that my child could handle the workload. Unfortunately the question I did not ask is if my child would truly understand the themes of the books. Maturity wise (as lit goes) we were not there. It's great to discuss rationalism as embodied by the character Fox in Til We Have Faces, BUT my 7th grader was just not there. That said, there were many students in his class that were. In fact, I would read some of the students board posts and papers (also posted on the board) and they were truly exceptional, mature students. My then 7th grader was "just" an average 7th grade boy. Beyond just the themes issue, the reading was about an hour a day for him and he is not a slow reader.
I am an intelligent and voracious reader. And I am a very literal reader (and am nowhere near the autism spectrum). As an adult, I have a difficult time finding themes in books. In AP English something, I read all of the Scarlet Letter without realizing that the A wasn't just embroidery like a monogram.
Just this summer I read the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. Thanks to the Close Reads podcast covering The Odyssey, I finally got to see the deeper meanings and themes. Before that podcast I had vague thoughts of "there seem to be a lot of looms in this book." Once I pick up on the theme, then I can run with it (or BS about it, which is what I learned to do in AP Lit). That podcast and How to Read Literature Like a Professor have been enormously helpful in helping me understand deeper meanings in lit.
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7 hours ago, cintinative said:
I'm in the same boat as you. I am only looking for the history end because we intend to take an online lit class (I just can't afford the history one).
I have been looking at various history textbooks that come with extra books of primary sources. Unfortunately there is no teacher key/guide/answers for the questions for the primary sources. Also, they tend toward the "excerpt" end, and I am wondering if I want less "excerpts" in favor of more of a complete look at a primary source.
I found Great Books Academy has study guides you can buy but there is no answer key available.
I have scoured the internet and have not found anything other than Omnibus that would give me the questions to discuss plus the answers.
I have been trying to avoid Omnibus because of the plagiarism issue. If that wasn't enough, my husband is seriously not a fan of Doug Wilson.
I am not sure if what I am looking for exists. My kids generally don't like educational videos (they disliked the sample of Old Western Culture), so my guess is that Great Courses wouldn't work either.
I'm all ears if someone has found something that i haven't!!
ETA: I do have TWTM but my kids would really not do well with the outline, take notes approach to reading a book like Herodotus. I need something with questions for discussion, etc.
We are planning sisters! My kids adore educational videos, and Great Courses are on the far end of educational videos.
With regard to the bolded, something I just started doing with my DS is to give him his essay topic at the start of the book, so that his reading will be more focused. For instance, we are reading The Screwtape Letters, and I gave him the essay topic of "CS Lewis wrote this book in 1941. Lewis fought in WWI. How does the Screwtape Letters reflect his experience with war?"
This way gives my kid a more narrow framework for taking notes. Because there are (as I see it) two main kinds of academic note-taking. The first is to study for something, and this involved detailed notetaking on everything. The second is notetaking for writing a paper/grant/etc. You are still reading the book, but it is much more for a specific purpose.
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1 hour ago, Spudater said:
My oldest is in 8th, but I’ll throw this out there since it sounds like you’re kind of there too. For me, reading The Well-Educated Mind was actually really helpful. I sort of use a hybrid of her personal study methods and CM -ish written narration to do lit with my oldest without a curriculum. Here’s what we do: we each have a composition book and read a chapter a day. For each chapter she is expected to give a written summary and three “points.” A point can be an observation, a question, or a striking quote. For each chapter I take notes so that I can ask interesting questions about characters and plot, draw attention to literary devices, and provide historical or other context. I usually end up with 1-2 pgs of bullet points. Then we discuss. She goes first. After the book is done we read a few critical articles to see what other people thought. It’s been really fascinating. We’ve had a lot of fun and I think we’ve not only gotten to really dive deep into these books, but we’ve gotten to know each other better, too. I’m planning to use Kolbe for ancient and medieval history because I’m not as familiar with some of the literary devices in older genres and especially because we’re having a new baby so I’ll be sleep deprived and grateful for the crutch, 😉 but I do plan on going back to this method once we get back to novels. The big drawback is it’s time consuming, so maybe not worth it to you unless you like me enjoy nerding out over books.
This is helpful! I read The Well educated Mind a few years ago, but it was intimidating then. I appreciate your strategy. I love nerding out over books - that is a big reason I dont want to outsource. Why would I pay money for someone else to do this with my son?😂
1 hour ago, Lang Syne Boardie said:OH. I missed that you are looking at 7th grade, coming up, and also working on a high school plan for later. For 7th/8th:
1. History and Geography - aforementioned Timetables of History, Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (the SOTW activity guides schedule this), and the aforementioned MapTrek (which has a middle grades level as well as elementary and high school).
2. Literature - there are Glencoe guides free online, for a lot of classics. They are a good fit for the logic stage.
3. Art - you could use Discovering Great Artists by Mary Ann Kohl as a spine for art study. This is a great choice for a student who likes to studio art; she has assignments inspired by each artist. I have modified this book for several learning levels.
So yes, cobbling is great, it used to be the default method, especially on these forums. But there's a lot more than just the great books and lit lists -- you can skew toward arts, science and invention, biographies, focus on women in history, more time in Eastern countries and cultures...there's just a lot that can be added or emphasized, so I wanted to mention this as the #1 benefit of DIY homeschooling.
This is another reason I want to DIY. We like blazing our own trails. I figured I would not be a good fit for Omnibus partly because I probably wouldn't like what they were emphasizing, even if we read the same selection of books. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.
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2 hours ago, chiguirre said:
GCP has a useful search function so you can find lectures on the literature works you want to read. The main thing you won't have with DIY using GCP is a Calvinist perspective.
That was my other big hangup with Omnibus - the theological bent. Thank you for your response - this was beneficial in helping me become more comfortable with DIY.
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My son never did Alcumus. He got more than enough practice from the book that I never saw a need. YMMV. My son also did Khan Academy algebra, so he actually finished 2 algebra programs, but he was quite young and we were not in a rush.
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6 hours ago, Lori D. said:
P.S.
You did not say, but, what about your student?
- What kind of student is your rising 7th grader? If average or struggling, then formal or online classes may not be a good fit at this time.
- How interested in "formal academics" or "classical studies" is this student? Again, if not geared in that direction right now, but you want to go in that direction, I would take it very slowly/gently with DIY Lit. and History studies, and just 1-2 classic/older Literature works mixed in with lots of high interest/high discussion-ability Young Adult works, to ease into more formal/classical studies, in prep for outsourcing (if needed) in a year or two.
- Will taking formal/classical online classes be boring or too difficult or not a good fit for the student? Or "turn off" from learning? If so, then I wouldn't outsource that way this year.
- What *interests* does this student have? How can you cover your goals and the subjects you need to cover, but also bring in your student's interests?
I ask, because, honestly, while I'm sure the MPOA classes are fine, the Lit. selections look really dull for the average middle schooler. Even if you have a strong/advanced reader, 7th-8th grade is a *fantastic* time to read/discuss some literature together -- explore the world, read works by/about peoples from other perspectives, read those great Young Adult works that have "meat" for discussion. Yes, go ahead and do a Shakespeare play in 7th grade as part of your DIY studies if you all are interested and excited about it. And include a few beginning classic works, if your student is ready. There are a ton of very engaging resources out there to help you do that -- you don't necessarily have to outsource to an online class at this stage...And of course, all of this is JMO. 😉 Warmest regards, Lori D.
Thank you so much for all of this. You are a gem. With regards to the bolded, lots of the lit selections look really boring to me, and I really enjoy reading. One of my big struggles with those lists for middle school kids (like on Omnibus), is to read such difficult material at an age where they cannot appreciate much of it, only understand some of it, and enjoy little of it (at least my kids) seems like an exercise in futility.
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Oh man, you and I have had a very similar weekend:). I just posted in the high school thread something along these lines.
I could have written everything you said, except for the "what we are doing" part.
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50 minutes ago, klmama said:
FWIW, I decided a self-guided approach was a better fit for our family. We use a lot of Great Courses lectures, Spielvogel Western Civ text, and the great works I find interesting or think the dc will enjoy. For ancients, that means mostly literature. Different dc have spent more or less time with the lectures and with Spielvogel, but all have read the lit.
Thanks! Thanks to some past threads I perused, Spielvogel is in my Amazon cart. As I wrote this, the Amazon guy just dropped off Our Young Folks Josephus, which will start for read alouds in March (possibly mom-edited for intensity), after I do Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories.
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26 minutes ago, Lang Syne Boardie said:
Have you read The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer?
Yes:). I guess I am trying to figure out what the cost of Omnibus/RR gets me other than an instructor, which I am not dismissing. Just isn't for me. It seems like your response is that my approach would be just fine and I am not missing out on anything, is that correct? I like striking my own path, but then I start to wonder if my kid is going to miss out on some amazing learning just because I was unaware of a certain flibbity-jibbit.
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What do you mean by "independently"? My son did AoPS algebra not online and it went fine. He watched the videos online, read the section, and did the problems. I would help him a bit, but not a ton. If he got stumped on a problem, the solutions manual was great! I had him read me the problem, discuss what he did, and then I (looking at the solutions manual) could help him unstick himself.
I know algebra quite well, but I did not have time to work out all the problems myself or to in-depth teach him the material. My kid is a math kid, however. But I think my approach would work for others just fine.
The videos are not totally necessary. Also, if it is a challenge (and this advice goes a bit against the AoPS discovery method) to get her on the computer, what about having her watch all the videos for the chapter in one fell swoop for her math that day? That way, she can see where she is headed and it gets all the videos over with. This is what we are doing for Counting and Probability and it works well. I watch their videos that way so that I can help my kid.
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I am thinking ahead for next year (7th) and the following years. I have read TWTM several times and have spent this past year reading some of the Great Books. When I look ahead for my son, I want him to read the Great Books, but Omnibus (Veritas Press) seems so exhaustive. Like reading to check as many boxes as possible (which is what it would become for us). I looked at Roman Roads and like that approach better. However...
I like doing my own thing with my kids. I love reading good books together and then having deep conversations. I dont want to outsource this - it is the reason I am homeschooling! I like assigning my own writing assignments. I strongly dislike quizzes and prefer doing my own assessment for understanding. We also have a subscription to Great Courses Plus, which has loads of courses on the ancient world to the present day.
Say I cobble together a course using 4 GCP courses (1 per quarter - this is a very doable pace for us), selected works from Omnibus/RR/other lists, and then have deep conversations and meaningful writing assignments. What would I be missing that Omnibus offers? Other than an outsider doing all the work😂 ? Some of my feeling is how can I make my kid read Eusebius because "it is important to have read him and understand him" when I had never even heard of the guy until 6 months ago? I need to read this stuff as well, and if I am going to read it, I dont want to pay loads of money for a class for my kid.
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Where I live, I think some of this is a reaction to the observation that it seems like the local school system tends to grind kids up and spit them out. And many are aware of it. Far too many kids emerge without an important part of them intact, whether it be their moorings, mental health, physical health, etc. Many of them have either gotten a sub-par education by anyone's standards or have received so competitive an education that it is crushing. Families are being pulled apart at the seams as the children spend upwards of 10hours a day with almost exclusively their peer group. Kids are being exposed to harmful things at far too young an age (peer pressure, p*rn, bullying, etc).
And many of my friends feel stuck in this situation; a sense of fatalism abounds. "Well, this is just the way things are. Of course my 5th grader is going to get exposed to all of the awfulness on the internet because of unlimited data and busses/lunch/et." "Of course my kid will emerge from high school not sharing my values." I am not saying that homeschooling is a panacea for all of this, but at least some of us can have a sliver of hope. In the course of human history, it is a very recent concept that parents and a close community are not the primary transmitters of values to their children.
I am all for "do what works best for your family", but I think the canary in the coal mine is that the bolded above is broken.
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How is it that we can send people to the moon and not have a decent, affordable pair of boobs (approved by insurance companies - no offense to the knitted ones) for breast cancer patients? This technology cannot be that difficult. Our health care system is a disaster.
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1 hour ago, wintermom said:
My first assumption would be that these Canadians are from Quebec, which is directly north of you. You could take a glance at their license plates to confirm this. They are speaking French because that is their native tongue, not because they are trying to annoy you or be secretive. As to the condescending attitude in stores, all I can say is that there is a cultural difference in customer service standard behaviour in Quebec, from my experience living right on the boarder with the province. It's like a scenario of, "I won't greet you and you don't greet me." There is no conscious intent to be rude, that's simply how things are.
Add in the fact that they may not be comfortable and/or enjoy speaking English, there is a good chance that they won't be chatty and overtly friendly when shopping. Meet them in the pub in the evening and you may find a completely different situation. The Quebec sense of humour is very, very funny. Improv is extremely popular throughout the province. They have improv teams in their high schools and universities, just like you have sports teams. The adult teams that compete are off-the-charts funny. And yes, they actually have improv competitions. They are "serious" about their comedy. 😂
I think this is what the USians have been trying to communicate in this thread about our population. Not to assume negative motives an value judgments where none are intended.
44 minutes ago, Above The Rowan said:I agree with this.
One of my closest homeschooling friends are from Quebec, have lived in Ontario for a long time now with their family, and we still find there are some cultural differences as to things like speaking loudly, speaking very brusquely - and they are VERY ‘say what i think, no sugar coating’. It caught me off guard a bit when I first was getting to know her, and I swore she hated my guts for the first year we knew each other. But that’s just her way. Aside from that, I have never known anyone with a bigger heart or a bigger laugh, and man they are a FUNNY family - we always have such a blast when we hang out.
My mother’s exhusband is from rural northern Quebec, and it was also a big culture shock when he merged into our family. His family would come to visit, and they CAN speak English, they all just chose not to. Even when my siblings and I are mostly angolophone, they would answer us in french when we spoke to them in English. They were VERY big proponents of keeping their French language and culture, and assumed it was the rest of Canada who should all make sure to speak French if they wanted to talk to them. Super snobby, they were.
I lived in Ottawa for a number of years pre-kids, and had similar experiences with folks who would come across from Quebec. I was a server, and I would talk to them in English - they’d reply to me in French, and when I’d say in my battered-up French that I only understand a little, they’d get REALLY angry. This happened often enough that it was not a surprise to me after a few months of living in Ottawa.
I think, too, sometimes people don’t realize how BIG some of our provinces are. And how isolated many towns and cities are from each other. Quebec, since we’re on that topic, is a very large province, but with a ton of small rural areas - so even regionally within the province there are big differences in culture and language and social behaviours.
Same goes for Ontario - massive province in size - I can drive from my town in northern ontario for 18 hours and still not be at the north edge of my province. And it can’t be overstated how very very different each part of Ontario is from the others. I live, on the map, technically in upper central Ontario but we are considered “northern Ontario” because anything else north of us is SUPER isolated, and have very different lived experiences. Many communities further north than I am are fly-in only, or they are native communities, there are lots of timber and mining towns and camps. Folks who hail from those areas (and even in my area of ‘northern’ ontario) are very very different than people who’ve lived their lives south of my region.
Ditto with this.
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This thread has me thinking in so many different directions and tangents. @..................., none of this is directed towards you (meaning it isn't personal), merely a jumping off point. I think the original post in touching on a lot of these things and the comments are circling around some of them.
1. Young adults having increased agency for difficult things, like going to the ER by oneself. This involves knowing when to go and how to get oneself there. This also can include traveling by oneself because of the multitude of small decisions that must be made, including navigating public transit.
2. Young adults having increased agency in the small areas of day-to-day life that might be "easier" to achieve when living on one's own vs with parents (paying bills, grocery shopping, etc).
3. The role of boredom and how that has changed in our society. On one hand, bored people can waste loads of time on screens, etc, and young adulthood is a scandalous thing to waste. On the other hand, boredom is the mother of invention. It is good to experience boredom. I find it tragic that screens allow us to fulfill our boredom with something passive.
4. Having interesting and self-actualizing opportunities (the "first world problems" part of it). Here is the sticky wicket. The experiences that I find to be deeply satisfying are not those that society (or myself) value at first glance. For instance, caregiving is neither glamorous nor "fun." Much more enjoyable is stuff centered around my preferences being met and fulfilling my inherent selfishness. My assumption is that this is the most controversial piece.
5. Working towards moving into adulthood through work or continuing education. This can include the other 4 points.
In an age of distraction, how can we use our time well? It is our most precious resource. Youth is wasted on the young, and all that. How do we help our kids navigate these choices to become interesting and functioning full members of society giving our limitations and theirs?
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15 hours ago, Calming Tea said:
If you hypothetically had a kid with a situation where they will go to community college, or straight into the workforce at some job where they hope to move up the ranks, or they will commute to your state school....They worked hard in high school, are good achievers, good SAT scores, and COULD have gone away but it's just better financially or logically more feasible (due to whatever factors not just finances), to stay home and save the money and go local.
This may sound like a very First World/Spoiled Middle Class American question BUT :
How do you ensure that kid does not feel disappointed and more importantly, gets a chance to spread their wings and experience new opportunities and force themselves to grow and stretch....
Other than PeaceCorps, Missionary Trips, Enlisting, or just taking vacations....
what is the possibilities as far as getting to be away from mom and dad, having more independence, seeing and going somewhere different and new, etc.?
I just see my son really growing as an independent young man and a person and taking opportunities and being forced to learn and do things he never would have at home. Not only socially but in so many other ways. Even just going to the ER alone 🙂 Sad as it was, he grew as a person in a way that never would have happened at home.
I only want to address the bolded. Yes, there are many people at home and abroad who have truly awful lives; who would pay money for your worst days. Who would love to have their kid going to the ER alone because it would mean prompt and appropriate medical care.
However, you live and interact in the first world. These are your problems. Just because there are people in horrific situations doesn't mean these decisions dont have a significant impact on your life. Just because there are people starving doesn't mean I can give up on cooking for my family and feed them Alpo. I am still responsible for functioning within the system and culture and people I am around. Otherwise, all of my decisions would fall to the lowest common denominator of "at least we are not living in a box".
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1 hour ago, skimomma said:
I was in this same position two years ago. Dd did AoPS through Intro to Geometry. It was tough at times and I thought I might lose my mind but she liked it and insisted on sticking with Int. Algebra after I had her look over several other texts. Two months in, we switched to Foerster. Apparently we hit her limit. She was still not happy to switch but we were so bogged down that I finally just made a decision. Foerster was a LOT of review so I started each chapter with the end of the chapter problems and decided whether to cover the whole chapter, parts, or none at all. We touched up some basics that needed more solidifying and new topics that had not been covered yet. It was very refreshing to have the time and space to do that. We finished well before the end of the year and spent the leftover time informally playing around with some sections from AoPS Int. Alg.
Dd had to take fall semester off of math completely and is now dual-enrolled in a Pre-Calc class at a STEM university. She finds it extremely easy. She has been working ahead in the book as she has some planned interruptions later in the semester and claims most of it was covered in Foerster or AoPS books. She had to take the university math placement exam and placed well into Calc I but we choose Pre-Calc due to the break in math and because it is her first DE experience. I was honestly surprised as she did struggle with parts of AoPS. She could do almost none of the challenge problems without help and often had to take a second (or third or fourth) try at the review questions. Her practice ACT math score was also much higher than I expected.
All that to say, that AoPS, even if it seemed to be a struggle, really gave my dd a leg up. She is considering a STEM path and I was a bit concerned that math would be a roadblock for her. I am far less concerned now. Looking back, I think slogging through AoPS Int. Alg. would have been fine even if we only got through half of the book. But my own concerns had us jumping ship.
I could hug you! Thank you so much for this. The amount of money I have spent on math curriculum... I own Lials and Larson, but I think I am going to buy Foersters and AoPS for Alg 2. What I might end up doing (I have not seen either yet) is comparing Foersters and AoPS and figuring out what is covered in both. Then doing the stuff in Foersters and using AoPS for additional challenge. He enjoys challenging math, but it is not his first love.
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On 1/19/2020 at 6:07 PM, Noreen Claire said:
DS10 just finished lesson 48/review 4 in the purple book of GWTM. He is doing fine with it so far (lessons take about 20-30 minutes, rarely do we have to split up a lesson, excluding reviews which we do over 2-3 days). I have read that it ramps up somewhere between weeks 18-20. I was originally thinking that if we could make it through week 18/review 6 in the next 10 weeks, that would give us last quarter to switch gears and work on some Killgallon writing, and we would start the GWTM red book next year, back at lesson 1.
I just saw that there is a video explanation for how to use the program as well as a chart that shows sample progressions through the different 'colored' books. I am wondering, how many people stop at midyear and start the next book, essentially doing the same lessons over again in the second half of the year? Our midyear is technically this week - should I stop him where we are and start the next book back at week #1, even though he currently isn't having any difficulty with the material? (I already have the red books, FWIW.)
How have you used GWTM with your middle schoolers?
Wow. I just clicked on the links and it is so reassuring that I am doing what was actually recommended by the author! I thought I was giving up or just not trying hard enough. I cannot believe that we are actually using a curriculum the way the author intended! This day will go down in history...
As to the bolded, I wonder that as well. Some of the initial lessons were so easy. I think what we might do is go back through some of the sentences that he did not diagram, and do those as review. The main thing my DS needs to review is just the nitty-gritty of sentence diagramming, not, say, irregular verbs or past perfect.
I can see starting a new school year with a new book. But I wonder if instead of redoing it all right away, if moving back and forth between GWTM and something like Killgallon would be more beneficial. I love that with Killgallon I can see the point to learning grammar.
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I could have written your exact post. We are at lesson 50 and we just switched to Killgallon for a break and to review good writing strategies. I have no idea what the answer is. I just know that my kids are super sciency and the type of grammar instruction that is really helpful to their needs is the Killgallon approach. I have really appreciated how much sentence diagramming has benefitted my son and me for helping us see how it all hooks together. So when we go over Killgallon, I can talk through how the sentence would be generally diagrammed.
That being said, I genuinely dont understand the need to know all the nitty-gritty of grammar. I have never once needed to know what a modal verb is or how to diagram it. Some of this knowledge seems so esoteric to me. Whereas with Killgallon, I am finally understanding why commas go in certain places. I have intuited these rules, and now I know them (my other kids has been doing Killgallon since Sept). I have found it enormously helpful to know the different types of clauses and phrases, because those can be put to use to improve writing. That, combined with WTM grammar up to lesson 50 at least, has helped us have a better grasp of what is going on.
Sorry I am no help in answering your actual question.😁
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“If your gift is not from the registry, please bring a receipt”
in The Chat Board
Posted
I say this as someone who regularly uses a wafflemaker...What is with registering for (or gifting) very specific, mono-functional kitchen items??? I have never had a kitchen big enough to store so many random gadgets. We received an iced tea maker, several waffle makers, and a hot chocolate maker, very specific platters like for deviled eggs, a bajillion different types of stemware, and other things I have forgotten. For "entertaining". I must be a very boring person. I think there is a very small percentage of people who actually use these items regularly. The rest is just projecting our fantasies onto some bride or mother to be.