I should have made my bias clear, but I've grown too accustomed to everyone with whom I associate online already knowing my bias. :) I am an LCC poster child, in philosophy if not always in perfect execution. Grammar is a difference that many people get hung up on, but it is not really the major difference between the two approaches. If I had to sum up the difference in one word, it would be "priorities." A day in the life might look much the same between three families who follow TWTM, LCC, and even CM, but each family will be working under a slightly different set of priorities, allowing the most important subjects to take center stage while the rest fade into the background a little. So, yes, I believe grammar is important, and it's necessary for writing well. I just don't believe that it's necessary to incorporate it into the progymnasmata, and I don't believe that it's necessary to study it separately outside of Latin. And I found the idea of dropping R&S English VERY scary at first. :) Remudamom, her name is Heidi the Goofy. :) She's probably still technically a calf, and she's big, dumb, sweet, and playful. She's a Jersey.

You're quite welcome, and I'm glad you found it helpful. :) I make no claims to being an expert on the progym. However, my understanding is that the progymnasmata are the writing exercises only. Classical Composition does teach the progym without adding grammar, and I considered using it, but I really love CW so much that I'd rather just tweak it. I believe the authors added the grammar to make it a complete LA program rather than just a writing program. There are overlapping areas, of course, with grammar and writing. However, even CW uses Harvey's for the grammar study and merely incorporates additional exercises directly from the models. I'm not opposed to this as it does make the grammar more relevant and it also has the student dealing with real sentences instead of ones manufactured for the purpose of the study of grammar. I prefer using real sentences from lit, especially for beginning grammar studies with my little guys. However, there's a catch 22 there. As the grammar becomes more complex, it becomes more and more difficult to take a systematic approach to grammar while using mainly examples from literature. Frankly, I have trouble believing there's enough benefit from learning how to diagram one type of sentence this week, and something completely different the following, to make it worth while to do that portion of CW. The sentence shuffles, OTOH, are repeated each week, so there is built in review if we learn new grammar specifically for them. In addition, they are part of the writing process itself rather than just grammar/diagramming practice. FTR, I know some who'd disagree with that and feel that diagramming the model sentences is important. But I don't. :) Our grammar studies include Latin and a sentence diagramming workbook, A First Book of Sentence Diagramming, soon to start the second book. We're fairly laid back with it, just doing a few sentences a day. It's been a good fit for us. I wasn't secure enough to JUST do Latin (because sometimes, we fall off that wagon), but I felt (and still feel) that full grammar program on top of the Latin is just overkill. HTH, and let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Not as much for Jared. Come to think of it, I don't think he did PM 6. We switched over to the Key to... Series books which work much better for him. He did continue to use the Challenging Word Problems books, though. It's funny, but the word problems in those books have far more challenging word problems than his pre-algebra book. :) Nikki thrives with Singapore and with Miquon. He catches on very fast (he's third grade and doing PM 4) and doesn't need a lot of repetition. It's an excellent fit for him. Joshua has done fine with the Early Bird books. It remains to be seen how he'll do with the PM series. :)

Hey, Alana. :) First, I have to confess to being the Queen of Tweaking. Secondly, although CW added in the study of grammar to their program for the convenience of parents, my interest in CW was for the progymnasmata, not the grammar. One of the reasons that the student workbooks never appealed to me was that it seemed too much for too little once the grammar was removed. Third, we take a winter break instead of a summer break, so it's been a bit of time since we did our last Homer exercise. Please feel free to ask questions if I'm not clear enough. :) In the back of the Homer core book are two schedules, one for doing Homer in two years and one for doing Homer in one year with older children. The schedules tell which lessons should be covered each lesson day and which writing project to do for the week. I did purchase the book of models that CW offers. So, we would read the model together, he'd narrate it orally, and we'd discuss it as necessary. Then we would read the pertinent parts of the core together. Jared had two CW comp books, one for exercises such as the sentence shuffles and outlines, and the other strictly for his writing projects. (One would do the trick, but for some reason this seemed better at the time.) We would choose unfamiliar vocabulary from the model which I had him alphabetize and look up in the dictionary (just for practice, and only about 5-7 words). He'd do the sentence shuffles (covering the grammar as needed to complete the exercise), his outline, and then start his writing project. Basically, everything you need to do is listed in the schedule at the back, so then you just go to the proper pages in the Core. We DID have to pick out the sentences from the models for the shuffles. This was not a big deal to me since we did not do the diagramming (we covered diagramming using another resource). I believe that the student book not only has the sentences already chosen, but also has them simplified when necessary to complete the diagramming exercise, and they may focus on particular grammatical concepts. If you want to do the whole program including the grammar, this would be something to consider. We also basically did the one year schedule in two years. :) This worked much better for us because it gave us two weeks for each writing project. I felt that was plenty, and I also felt that doing all the work in one week was just too much. Please let me know if I can help more, though I may need to go glance at the core to refresh my memory. :) ETA: We also often did some things orally, like Theon's analyses.

I haven't seen any of those, but Stephanie gave me a thumbs up on the LOTR for the discussion questions. She and I rarely disagree on curricula, so I'm betting this one will work for us. Beyond the discussion questions, I also feel like it's going to be an excellent way to start discussing various literary terms. We already discuss literary terms presented in CW in terms of the Harry Potter books, so learning them as they relate to well loved books is a tried and true method for us. :)

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel. :} Love your new avatar!

Not at all. :D I've got to purchase the student workbook for Diogenes: Maxim this weekend. I didn't order it when I bought the core because we've never used them, but apparently Diogenes is set up differently than the others so that it's no longer optional. So we'll be starting it as soon as the workbook arrives. I LOVE CW. Oh, and we're also doing the LOTR curriculum this year. Have y'all done that?

Singapore Math and Classical Writing are two of our mainstays, though Jared moved on to Dolciani's Pre-Algebra this year. I think Nikki will start Lively Latin this year. We cover most other subjects through the liberal application of books. :) Um, yeah, but we got a cow! :) And I think that's been our big issue-- trying to mesh the homeschooling lifestyle with the farming lifestyle while still leaving me something that looks like a lifestyle. So to speak. I like the tone of the Galore Park books, but the content of LBO better. However, the easier pace of LP was much desired while brushing off our sore bottoms from that fall off the wagon.

Brittney, Jared is 11, Nikki is 8, Joshua is 5, and Eli is almost 3. In just two more years, I'll have a Freshman and a Kindergartener in the house. Weird, huh?

No, we switched over to LP before we finished LBO. I'm still not sure that was a wise decision to make because there's a lot about LBO that I feel is better than LP. We do have LBT on hand, though. Those are two that I won't get rid of.

Hey, Karen. :) We're working through Latin Prep and Lingua Latina. We fell off the Latin wagon last year (I'm a baaad LCC Mama, I know), so now we're having to gear up again. Other than that, we're just doing the farm thing and I'm attempting to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm homeschooling three out of four this year. How have you been? I haven't chatted with you in a LONG time. :D

We didn't use the student book and TM, but I believe they both refer you to the Core when necessary. So yes, I'd say that's definitely possible. I did read through much of Homer before we started using it, but I didn't understand it until we started using it, if that makes sense. :)

:iagree:

It seems pretty clear cut to me that when someone asks for further clarification of the rules, he deserves to receive it. Yes, people are free to decide where they want to spend their online time. And they are also quite free to attempt to obtain clarification to see if this should be one of those places. I do not understand your ire over a simple request for clarification. As you said in numbers 3-5, you had control over opening this post, continuing to read after you found the content inappropriate, and engaging yourself in the discussion.

It LOOKS scary, that's all. If you try to read and absorb everything in that book in one weekend, it feels complicated. But if you just read and absorb the small amount you need for each week's lessons, you'll find it quite straight forward. And it's an amazing writing program.

Not doing Harvey's, and we didn't do the sentence diagramming. I see sentence diagramming the same way that I see math-- it's best taught in a systematic fashion. Therefore, we used a sentence diagramming workbook to cover diagramming. With Homer, my goal was only to cover writing. We did cover grammar as necessary to do the sentence shuffles, which were my son's favorite parts of the program, and the area where I'm convinced he learned the most about writing.

I've used Homer without the workbooks and had not trouble at all. However, we did NOT do all the grammar recommended Homer. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference, though I suspect not. I do not regret that we didn't use the student books.

I think I actually hyperventilated when I got the Homer core. :) But it's really not bad, and we didn't even use the student books. We just jumped in and each week I'd read the info that I needed for that week.

:iagree:

Really? I didn't know that. I've only read 1984. :001_huh:

Heh. ITA. :lol: Funny thing about this word: it drove me nuts until we learned the Greek alphabet. Then I saw it written in Greek one day, and pronouncing it was no longer an issue for me.

Oh, I get what you're saying, but I think you're missing my point. An armed citizenry is a deterrent against government excesses. In an unarmed society, it only takes a couple of soldiers at the door. In an armed society, the government would have to escalate matters significantly to reach the same goals. That escalation would produce an entirely different political climate from the present one, which we both agree does not justify private citizens owning stealth bombers. In fact, that escalation would be an all out war with two opposing sides, or it would be guerrilla warfare. In either case, it would no longer be a merely academic discussion.

But I never said "in case of revolution." I don't think the Founding Fathers were suggesting that we overthrow the government that they were forming. An armed citizenry is a deterrent in and of itself for many government excesses that lead to revolution.

And if such an event should occur, then I'm sure many minds would change about private citizens having a need for such weapons. The logical conclusion is that if such an event were to occur, then the political situation would be quite different from what it is now. I never argued that they should be legal right now. This is your scenario. Thankfully, yes, I'm sure they would.

Actually, you are the one who brought up tanks and anti-aircraft guns and stealth bombers. Those would only be necessary to defend against the government in the case of the government using them against us, and my point was that if such an event were to occur, a lot of minds would change quickly and radically. And if the government was not using those types of weapons against US citizens, then an M16 might have some advantages, so your argument that they would be no defense against the military falls apart.