Anyone else have any feedback about the textbook companion?

We are LOVING Visual Latin (http://www.visuallatin.com/). I've never taught Latin before, but I couldn't imagine an easier to use curriculum than this is. And the guy is funny and engaging to watch... I am actually excited about doing it. I am "teaching" it at our home school co-op. It makes more sense to me than other things I've seen because they are actually using it from Lesson 1 doing some translating...

Thank you. That is helpful... I think I am leaning towards the easy classical. I don't really care for lots of cut and paste activities, and I could probably benefit more from the weekly scheduling than the detailed scripted lessons... I tend to skip over scripted things anyway. I did see a used copy of the Veritas teacher's manual at a used curriculum store in town, so I may end up buying and using it as a supplement too.

One more bump... and then I will leave it alone :001_smile:

:001_smile:

So, I had planned to use the Easy Classical schedule for ancients next year, but I'm wondering what the differences are between it and just using the Veritas Press History (and getting the "Scholars" schedule). Can anyone compare the two?

I would highly recommend The Logic of English as well. It sounds like it would fit the bill perfectly. You can pace it to your needs and it is a great program to start back at the beginning without it seeming babyish. And, you'd get basic phonics, spelling, and grammar instruction from the beginning too. I can't say enough good things about it.

:iagree:

My son didn't have a problem with spelling without immediate reward. And they are reading from day one in SWR. They are supposed to be reading back the words from their lists to you and reading them as they write them, etc. As a PP said my oldest hated simple readers like Bob books and it was torture for him to have to sit and sound out words in a reader like that. But, he followed the pattern and by about section I he was reading well... really well. He skipped from struggling to read bob books to reading the Bible without many steps between it seems like. It made me a believer in the method for sure! I am a lot like him and can understand why he thought it was torture to read "Bob sat, Cat sat, etc"

:iagree:

SWR is great! But, although I LOVE the method, the results, etc, I found myself always wishing for an excuse to do something else. It is not so hard once you get the hang of it, but I really wanted to find something that was more open and go. SWR became very open and go for me for the spelling list part of it, but I never got into a good routine for the grammar, practice, and really explaining and applying the spelling rules. I felt like I was still wondering every day what else I needed to do, or which thing to concentrate on, etc. After using it every day for a year and a half, you'd think I would have got that down, but I still was finding things that I should've have been doing all along. In a lot of ways, this is a good thing about SWR. It really will last through lots of years of kids, and you can do it over and over again (starting higher up in the lists each year) and always have something new to learn. But, I found the Logic of English and decided that it was all that I was wanting SWR to be. It is laid out logically, telling exactly what to do to incorporate grammar, spelling rules, etc and it really explains the why of spelling. Yesterday we discussed the spelling of the long a sound and drew a little chart on the board that showed how "ea" only says the long a sound in 9 words, "ai" is usually used in the middle of a syllable, "a" usually is used to say "a" at the end of a syllable, and "ay" at the end of the word. All I remember doing in SWR is learning that "ay" usually says "a" at the end of a word. Anyway, I feel like it is SWR applied and laid out systematically. If I hadn't found LOE, then I would certainly still be using SWR. I could never convince myself to use something else, because I really believe in the method. I think any of the programs based on the spalding method would be the same as far as effectiveness... LOE is the easiest to use from what I have seen.

LOE does have 4 sounds for y. When we did SWR I added the fourth sound when I taught it to my kids. I understand the reasoning of why they don't use the E sound, but it just seems so much less complicated to teach them that Y sometimes says E. The reasoning that it is easier to just think to spell babi, so then you know it has to be a y because English words don't end in i, doesn't seem easier to me. I'd rather have as few "think to spell" words as possible. When they hear a new word I am not always going to be there to tell them to "think to spell" it in a certain way. There are a LOT of words that end in the E sound spelled with a Y.

I bought 3 decks of cursive. We did cursive first, so I figured we'd just stick with those. I think it would be fine to get whichever and mix cursive with bookface, etc... The backs of the cards are all the same (the Logic of English logo), so in matching games, etc. that wouldn't be a problem. My kids that are using it are 7 and 5 (almost 6). My 7 year old is breezing through so far, but he already had a year and a half of SWR, so he already knows all the phonograms, etc. We are loving it- they both beg to do more every day. We are just on the 4th lesson and anything new is fun to them :001_smile:... Hopefully they will keep loving it. I am!

We bought the Teacher's Manual, one workbook per kid and the game book with 3 sets of game cards. I had used SWR before and figured I could just modify the phonogram cards from it (there are 4 new ones a few new sounds). This is working fine. I plan to make our own grammar and spelling rule cards. Everything is listed pretty conveniently in the teacher's manual and it would not be hard at all to make your own flash cards. The game book and game cards are nice. Having 3 decks of cards is best cause some of the games require 3. If you really needed to, you could buy the game book and make your own game cards. The game cards are really nice though- more like playing card quality. You could get by without them though. I would probably not buy one deck if you aren't going to buy 3. It would be hard to play some of the games if you had cards that didn't match I think... So, just make 3 decks yourself, so they all would match. We didn't get the spelling journal, so I'm not sure what it is like. I have just been using a regular composition book for my son to write the vocab development words in. I think that will work fine for us.

I am using it with a K and a 1st grader. We have only had it for 2 weeks, but are LOVING it so far. It is very "logical" :001_smile:. I don't know anything about PR1, so I can't compare, but I like the way LOE is laid out and open and go. I also really like the fact that they are doing some grammar, etc. with the spelling rules. We have 4 kids 7 and under and would like to have more, so I appreciate a little bit of overlap of subjects... It seems more efficient to be using your spelling words to learn grammar concepts and basic writing, etc. We did SWR and I love the method. I just wanted to streamline my daily work as much as possible and though SWR is great it is not as open and go as I would have liked, even after using it consistently for over a year. We got into a good routine for the spelling lists, but I had a hard time implementing all the extras. LOE seems to be basically SWR with a few tweaks here and there, but in a easier to use, more logical format. I don't want to speak ill of SWR though, cause if LOE hadn't come along I would have stuck with SWR, I think it's great.