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Cranberry

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    Pennsylvania, USA
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    SAHM and Social Worker
  1. I'll have a 4th grader next year and a little stumped on the writing choices. We are likely going to enroll in Kolbe and they use an old version of Voyages in English with Classical Composition (from Memoria Press). Frankly, Classical Composition scared the bejeebers out of me and upon looking at the sample I can't imagine how my son would be ready for that, but maybe I'm wrong. He's done WWE1-3 and FLL 1-3, with Language of God (from CHC) as a supplement. He has no experience with outlining, paragraph formation, topic sentences, etc. He's done very well with WWE and FLL. We're at the end of WWE3, and he's giving great summaries and doing well with the dictation. I guess I'm starting to second guess WWE a bit because it seems like other programs have so many other exercises that he's not getting. So is he ready for WWS? or should I just go with Classical Composition even though I have no familiarity with that method? My son is an advanced reader, and enjoys writing and I'd say he's a bit above grade level, not the stereotypical boy that hates it, if that helps.
  2. thanks for the scott foresman tips! I was hoping to find something on edhelper since I bought the membership, but didn't really find anything. I suppose I do need to trust that this is still an early learning gentle intro to concepts they will master later, but it seems like the only thing he's retaining are the poems. It's not the fault of the program, I don't think. We both love it, I just feel like on the off days that we don't do a lesson (we generally do 2-3 per week) he could use some extra practice that he could do on his own.
  3. I'm wondering if anyone has a good source for some extra independent help with concepts in FLL 3. My son is doing well with it, but it seems like he needs more review of stuff. For instance when we do the lesson on predicate nominatives, he does fine but if I ask him 2 days later what that is he looks at me like I have 5 heads. I don't mind some sort of work-booky type thing. Just simple exercises like "circle the adverb, underline the adj." etc.
  4. I need a new handwriting direction for my son. He just learned cursive and I think I wanted a copybook for him to continue practice, he'll be 3rd grade. I also need something for my 1st grader. I am frustrated because I just can't seem to get enough info on the copy books from memoria press. They don't have any samples from #2 and seem to mostly have samples of blank pages for #3. Can anyone give their opinion and short description about how they are set up?
  5. I'm a lector at Mass (for non-Catholic's, it's just a fancy way of saying I do the Bible readings up front). I had a priest once tell me that I shouldn't say "ay" because it sounded like I was trying to be pretentious. So I shouldn't say "ay reading from the letter of St. Paul to the...." rather "ah reading from..." Frankly I thought he was being weird, I always thought that saying "uh" for a was just more common and "ay" was a little more proper, something you'd say in a speech or whatever. Just like we often say "gonna" instead of "going to" but we wouldn't say that if we are reading something out loud.
  6. aahhh, ok, thanks for the deep breaths! I know the program is getting significantly more difficult I just thought by now he was supposed to be getting better along with it! Good to hear we're on the right path. I think we'll chug along and through the summer keep working on some of these skills as we finish up history.
  7. So we're coming to the end of WWE2, DS (8, 2nd grade) was doing very well, but the dication seems to be getting much harder for him and he's struggling. I'm pretty sure I have to repeat the sections 4-5 times and even then while he's writing I still need to help him along. So I'm not sure what to do. Is this ok, does it mean we should do some extra stuff before moving to level 3 in August? Should he really be able to repeat long sentences back to me after hearing them only twice? I feel like I'm asking him to do something even I'm not sure I could do so quickly. Any thoughts? His narration is ok. Not great, but ok. His comprehension is fine but sometimes he likes to change things to his own words that end up changing the meaning of things. Really though, I'm more concerned with the dictation skills than I am the narration.
  8. Here's the quick back story... DS is 8, end of 2nd grade. He was a natural reader and we never really did much phonics instruction. He just sort of taught himself without my help! We were doing some phonics, but he just pretty much figured it all out on his own. We did Seton spelling for 1st grade which he was totally bored with, would do several weeks in one weeks span and never missed a word. He hated all the writing. Then we switched to Sequential Spelling mid year last year and have gone on to SS book 2. He likes it in that he can spell big words but I don't think it's helping him be a better speller at all, he still makes the same kind of mistakes, even though he does better with the lists in SS. So here's what I'm looking for, keeping in mind he'll be in 3rd grade but a reading level closer to 6 or 7th (not really sure). He is a natural speller, probably because he's very visual and sees the words correctly...but still needs a lot of help for bigger words. --something he can do more independently. Next year I will have a son in 1st, a 3.5yr old, and a new baby in October, and I love the other programs that we use so not willing to go more independent on those. --it can have more writing, and I don't mind workbooky stuff for this subject. We do enough other non-workbook stuff for other subjects --I would like it to be something that gives him help with knowing how to spell words without just guessing. For myself, I know hardly any spelling rules as I learned to read similar to how he did, just picked it up at an early age on my own. --it can be computer based I love AAS for my other son, and he loves it too, but I just don't know how to get my 8 yr started on it. He will be so bored and think I'm crazy if I make him start at level 1 but it seems that I need to do start at the beginning or he's going to be lost. I'm also not crazy about how much involvement it takes from me. But I'm open to ideas on how to make it work for an older child if anyone has any to share! I should also say that we're Catholic and while I certainly don't need anything Catholic or even Christian, I don't particularly like to support companies that have a strong anti-Catholic bias, even if it doesn't show up in their spelling...it's just a principle thing. Ok, so can anyone help me? I know it's a lot and I'm hoping there's some magic program out there for him! TIA!
  9. my kids tried making animals shapes out of various plants and things they found in the yard. Fun stuff...looking forward to some more sunny days to do that again.
  10. yep, my guy does that too occasionally. I tell him its a sign of much needed extra practice...:lol: Seems to be a quick cure! :tongue_smilie:
  11. not much writing unless you want it to be. My son does the 10 words with the tiles, then writes the phrases and extra optional words with a white board marker. You could do everything with tiles if you wanted. You can absolutely go faster. I truly thing that with a little extra review at the beginning of level 2 if you have an older child who is fluent reader, you could start with level 2. My son is really blowing through this program fast and we've been doing about a lesson a day (3-4x week). But he loves it so we can sit for 20 mins or so and do it, and he picks it up quickly. It is very easy to tailor to your child. There is optional practice with each lesson. For a struggling child you would use it for extra practice to solidify the rule. For my son, I just use it as more stuff to do because we've gone through everything else quickly and he just wants more words to spell. HTH!
  12. I have used FLL 1/2 with my 2 boys starting both at 5.5, midway through kinder year. My 2nd grader is now just starting FLL 3. What we like... -oral lessons...I love that it's not dependent on handwriting and not workbooky. They retain stuff much better because it's oral. -short lessons (takes no more than 5-10 mins each day) -easy to tailor to your kid...substitute a poem here or there if you don't like it ...skip a few lessons if they get the material quickly -built in review. What we don't like... -picture narrations in the first edition are pretty pathetic. I thought the drawings were a little hard to decipher, but I know this was improved for the newer versions -I'm not a huge fan of the poem selections, but they aren't terrible and they are easy enough to swap out. Hope that helps!
  13. My son is 5, midway through kinder and just finished level 1, we started after christmas. We did about a lesson a day but sometimes we didn't get to it, so maybe 3-4x a week. So it took us about 2.5 months. The first three lessons are very basic and are meant to be sort of in tandem with each other, and if your child knows all the basic phonograms those lessons will go very quickly. I think AAS works best if you decide how long you can reasonably spend on spelling each day and just work on it for that time or until you finish a lesson. The beauty of the program is that you can pick up and start whenever and just move to the next level when your child is ready. If you have a longer summer break in the middle of a lesson, just plan for a week or two of review when you pick back up.
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