Medieval Mom
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Posts posted by Medieval Mom
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I've been watching for over a year, and it hasn't (that I've noticed) yet. :glare:
:)
(I suppose if I ever buy it, it'll go on sale the next week) :D
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If I didn't schedule specific times off, it would be far to easy to take a break "because we need one" too frequently.
Tara
:iagree:
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We begin our year (180 required days)' date=' the Monday after the 4th. We "school" for 9 weeks then take 1 week off. We then "school" 9 more weeks. This brings us up to the Friday before Thanksgiving. Starting Thanksgiving week we begin a 6 week break. The Monday after New Years we begin our second semester. We "school" 9 weeks and take 1 off. We then do our last 9 weeks for the year which ends mid May. We have an 8 week summer break.
We are always learning even when we are on a break. When we are in "school" mode, that is just when I'm being a bit more diligent that we are covering the 3 Rs on a regular basis. It's when we keep our logs and samples and such which is required in our state.
This schedule works for us and has for a few years now. December is a very busy month for us, so we enjoy having the time off. 3 of my 4 kids have their birthday the week of Christmas so it's a nice gift to them to have off and have the time to focus on Christmas and birthday fun.[/quote']
Sounds like a lovely plan!
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We schedule 40 weeks. With 52 weeks in the year, and 40 weeks of school, that leaves us 12 weeks of off. We generally schedule this as one week per month: a week at Thanksgiving, a week at Christmas, a week at New Year's (so, two weeks in a row), etc. It's worked well for us for a few years now.
Since I divide our work further into quarters, we complete 10 weeks of school in 3 months.
Now, life does not always easily fall into neat weeks. So, I have learned to consider "one week off" as "five days off" per month. We may need three days off at Thanksgiving, and two days off the week before, for example.
It works for us! But, I agree with all PP, to do what works best for you!
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How about Charles Lamb's Beauty and the Beast? It's on Google Books. (Free.)
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For the above scenario, I'd highly recommend looking at CLE Grade 1. Scripted (but not as teacher intensive as many of the programs listed above), great for a diligent, bright girl, straight-forward to someone new in homeschooling (and perhaps only interested for 1 year), and economical to boot.
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VERY happy with everything except Latin. Switching that. :D
I do need to get typing and piano squeezed back into our day, though! :tongue_smilie:
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Well here's a pretty minimal introduction to the grammar. Reminds me of First Form in the beginning, even though it does have longer sentences to translate later on. First Steps in Latin. If you prefer a hardcopy it's been revised as New First Steps in Latin - I've seen it on Amazon.
This is a FANTASTIC book! Thank you so much for sharing!!! :hurray:
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Well...I've noticed we are both attracted to some similar curricula lately. LWT looks a bit like How to Tutor. How are you doing with the 2 letter spelling words with your little guy? I forget the name of that vintage speller you linked me to, that was like HTT. Are you looking to do something similar with Latin, because that teaching style works for you?
No matter what curricula you use, what are your goals? Are you looking at a narrow or wide vocabulary? With my little guy I wanted a large vocabulary for 1st declension ONLY, so he could PLAY with it. Draw pictures. Write little stories. That was his 4th grade year. I still remember his wolf and ghost story hanging on the fridge :crying: I wouldn't do that differently. 1st declension and present tense were enough. I wanted him to understand how inflection worked.
I think I would have stopped using LWT in 5th grade and started serious Caesar prep. By 2nd declension I would have wanted to severely narrow the vocab and start tackling the declensions and conjugations, NOW that he understood how inflection worked and had fallen in love with the language. We started Henle in the 2nd half of 5th grade, when I was able to afford it. I remember I had it mailed to my neighbor's house so my husband wouldn't get mad at me. I had to listen to a sermon from her first on submission :tongue_smilie:, but she let me do it.
Sometimes I have hopped curricula, but the student was studying the same exact thing, just with a different book, or only "I" was seeing a different book. Some of these Latin curricula are covering the same topics, but are just written in a different style, or even just formatted differently. That isn't the same as switching from Weaver to My Father's World to Abeka to CLE.
If you have a set of goals to cover this year, and switch ten times from one free book to another, it won't matter, as long as you cover the topics you planned to.
Yep. I thought about it today and decided that that's the direction we want to go in -- exactly-- for 4th and 5th. I want vocabulary-building in 4th (because he's INTERESTED; he's been reading Usborne beginner books in Latin and such just for the fun vocab. on his own time). (He's got enough Latin grammar down with GSWL to make fun sentences.) Then I want to hit Caesar prep. in 5th (mostly likely with Henle, which just arrived).
So, you hit the nail on the head. Wide vocab./narrow grammar in 4th followed by narrow vocab./serious grammar in 5th.
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That vintage speller I linked you to was The North American Spelling Book. Let's see if I can find it. Oh, here.
So far, ds has fairly well grasped the two letter combos. of consonant-long vowel. He's having great fun pointing out words like be, so, we, he, etc. in our picture books. :) He's also picked up various and sundry words I've never taught, but that's a different story. ;)
Yes, direct, thorough, books of excellent content with little to no scripting work best for me. (McGuffey's, old spellers, old grammars, old arithmetic, old ... anything.) About as scripted as I can handle is R&S English and Arithmetic. :D
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I'm adoring the D'ooge audio, but Henle is SO much easier to start with. I really like that these 2 books overlap in limited vocabulary geared towards Caesar. I'm glad I don't need to immediately purchase and wait for shipping for Henle, to get an immediate Caesar prep fix. And I'm learning a lot of English pronunciation as well as Latin. :lol:
If I stick with the D'oogle, I'll repurchase Henle AGAIN :lol: I've owned MANY copies over the years. I always end out back with Henle and Machen.
I would have been in heaven with the free vintage Latin Without Tears, when I was teaching my little guy with homemade sentences from the library copy of Latin Made Simple. Boy, do I wish I could mail myself that book, back in time.
Oh no! Remember this thread, Hunter? :willy_nilly:
I've been (re)considering my original plan of Latin Without Tears all day long. Maybe I should just give it a shot. After all, it's only 4th grade, right? I can always choose something else next year. Latin Without Tears seems to be the perfect extension for our Latin study after GSWL.
Sigh.
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What are the differences between these programs? If you have used one and switched to the other, why? Or are they just too similar for it to matter? The only thing I remember hearing as different is that OPGTR is very scripted.
This is the number one difference that struck me.
Bumping for you, and hoping that someone with experience in both programs can be of further help.
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It isn't a mistake. There is no consensus on what the fourth principal part of Latin verbs should be. The -um form is the -m (or I) supine, which is a very rarely used verbal. The -us form is the perfect passive participle, which is much more commonly used. These two forms are syntactically very close -- you can always form one from the other just by swapping the m for the s. That means, for the purpose the principle parts are needed for, they are functionally identical. Some dictionaries list the 4th part as the participle, because you'll use it a lot more than the supine. The problem with this is that not all verbs have passive forms -- e.g. some are intransitive, and those don't have passive participles. Some dictionaries which use the participial form then switch to the future active participle for the 4th part of intransitive verbs.
Oh sheesh! I had forgotten all about this, if, indeed, I ever knew it. :blush:
Thanks for the clarification. :)
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I haven't been keeping up with the Latin threads lately, so had no idea of your struggles with FFL. I'll have to go search some of them out :-)
Latin and Greek can be great for OCD when it's correct, but when there are mistakes it's just :scared:. I need books written by people with OCD, when possible.
Oh, good. I was afraid that I'd rather overdone the point. :tongue_smilie:
I'd definitely like a Latin book written by people with OCD. :D
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For Greek I had to start my instruction from scratch and had to use some resources that others snub, to get STARTED. It's better to pick up back habits and do it "wrong" and even be subjected to intolerance and just about anything if it gets you STARTED. When it comes to Greek, my response is that "You have to know an awful lot about Greek to have bad habits!" Go bad Greek habits! :D
I can afford to be a bit of a Latin snob and a cheapskate when picking Latin curricula. I don't want to discourage anyone from using MP Latin, if it's working for THEM. Seriously, use what you are making progress with, and collect bad habits as souvenirs. :lol: And spend what you HAVE to. Just PERSONALLY I'm not using the MP products right now.
:D
As you know from other threads, I've come to the end of my rope with MP FFL. I do know enough Latin (from college) to recognize the errors. (Yesterday, in Lesson 7, they have children memorizing the four prin. parts of do, dare... as "do, dare, dedi, datus" which ought to be "do, dare, dedi, datum". Now, if I hadn't had "do, dare, dedi, datum" memorized already, I would not have caught the error. Luckily, my Cassell's Latin dictionary on the shelf confirmed what I knew to be the true 4 prin. parts of "dare". )
I just don't encounter those types of errors in older books. In my frugal mind, if I'm going to spend big $$ for a new, modern, flashy program, it better have VERY FEW ERRORS. If not, why not go with an older text, or as in the awesome thread referenced above, no "program" at all?
(I guess I'm a snob about this. For this reason, I never buy the coffee-table-book-like knitting books that come out. They have beautiful, glossy pictures but no genius behind the construction. Far worse, they are rife with errors. I don't have patience for that, even though I'm an experienced knitter enough to recognize the errors at once. I'd rather design my own pattern, or use older books written by knitting masters who were more concerned about content and method than a flashy layout.)
So, I think I'll be spending the next few days wading through my old school Latin books for what I'd look for in a knitting book: a book written by a master who cared more about content, method, and results than about a flashy (or even easy) layout.
In the meantime, ds would probably be quite happy sitting down to read a bit of Latin. I've collected new and old readers that he'll contented read for an hour or so. He's tired of just translating one word sentences from FFL. ;)
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Okay! I may just take the plunge and do this. I've had it with Latin programs! Had it! I love Latin. My ds loves Latin. But FFL (with all its errors and tedium) is sucking the very blood out of our day. I dread teaching Latin with FFL. Today, finding yet ANOTHER ERROR in the memory work of principal parts, I felt the final straw break.
I'm now off to delete my row in our planner for FFL; in its place will be "Latin" with a little checkbox.
Sigh. This is a very timely thread for me. Thanks to Angela in Ohio for your wonderful inspiration and wisdom, and to Hunter for bumping!
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Active: The Romans conquered Britain.
Passive: Britain was conquered by the Romans.
Active: VeggieTales entertained the children while I cleaned the kitchen.
Passive: The children were entertained by VeggieTales while I cleaned the kitchen.
Active: The novel engrossed me.
Passive: I was engrossed by the novel.
IMHO, the modern-writing push to eradicate passive writing is just silly. These stylistic trends come and go.
It reminds me of the false grammar "rules" they taught us in school, like "Always say, 'Robert and I...' instead of 'Robert and me.'" I know MANY people who think that's really a rule! Of course it's not! Mom gave the cookies to Robert and me. :)
It's also NOT a rule to "avoid the passive voice whenever possible." :glare: (At least it's not a rule in my book. ;))
I think it is useful to arrange sentences so that they are strong, but this does not always need to be accomplished "strong verbs", or short, Hemingway-like writing. :)
Of course, I'm old-fashioned, prefer pre-20th literature, and NOT a modern editor. :)
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We add it to our oatmeal in the morning. :)
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We JUST began last week. My ds finds it very amusing, esp. fa fe fi fo fu fy, which we call speaking like giants and do in a deep voice. You know, as in "Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!" Ds likes to do ca ce ci co cu cy in a mousey voice. I have no idea why that is, but I just go with it. ;)
All that to say that we haven't got to the sentences yet. :)
Good to know about the audio! I'm very blessed that I grew up with a father that was INSISTENT upon drilling us in good, old-school pronunciation. In fact, whenever he visits, he still likes to discuss (or quiz me) on pronunciation, arithmetic , grammar, etymology, poetic forms, Latin references in modern poetry, etc. :D You've got to love a dad like that. :)
Speaking of Dad and dictionaries... He recently gave me his mother's Webster's Dictionary from 1942. It is wonderful, and, best of all, well-loved (worn). I never knew her; but now I feel like I have a little piece of her. Maybe she, too, looked up this particular word. Sigh. BTW, it *does* have pronunciations. :)
I'm so sorry you suffer from seizures. :grouphug:
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I spent some time comparing both programs today. I vastly prefer HTT. Early sentence writing is a priority here. Leonard is awkward and faster, without the smoothness and handholding of HTT. I want to be able to systematically introduce grammar topics during copywork, dictation and sentence compositions. I don't want to EVER require ANYTHING from my students that was not directly taught. They have experienced so much failure because they were expected to do things they were never taught to do. Many students infer things and learn them outside of school, that they can apply to school assignments. I cannot count on that for my students. HTT is smooth. There are few or no gaps. Grammar lessons can effortlessly be introduced in HTT lesson 2.
Yes, that makes sense. In your case, I'd definitely prefer HTT. I'm teaching a very different student here, namely, a 3 (almost 4) y.o. boy. Grammar would be overkill at this point. :D
Since we have plenty of time, my goal is to have ds learn the 2-letter syllables and words in Leonard's syllabary/speller by the time he's 5. At that point, I'll decide whether to proceed with the speller, Alpha-Phonics, McGuffey's, Word Mastery, or something else. :)
By the bye, Hunter, I remember you writing in another thread that you liked McGuffey's, based on what you discovered about their word list. What did you mean by that? Did you mean that all the new words ever introduced at are the beginning of the lesson? Or was the word list itself based on some source or system not mentioned in the text itself? I've been curious about this! :bigear:
We've gone back and forth using McGuffey as a main part of our program. Now in fourth, we're using the Fourth Reader for vocab. (writing the words with diacritical marks once, without them twice-- then writing the words in sentences), elocution (oral reading and drill), composition, etc. and loving it.
Well, that's way off topic.... Sorry! :auto:
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No pronunciations. They skipped them :-0
I actually have a big dictionary from the late 1800s with the pronunciation system, but it's fragile, and a few pages have smeared printing. It's a good occasional reference book, but not useful for everyday. And also I can't get copies for my students.
:blink: No pronunciations? Wow. :blink:
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Now if someone would just reprint a Worcester's or old Merriam-Webster dictionary! If you are geeky about the vintage books, well...I'm downright insane. All I can say, is that it must have been nice to be a teacher in the days of the Eclectic Series and the Worcester Dictionary.
How about this dictionary? :) I haven't seen it myself...
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That is a NICE vintage book! It uses the same pronunciation system as the McGuffey's. It is VERY like HTT/Alpha-Phonics. Thanks for the link!
You're welcome. I spend FAR too much time looking at vintage books. This one is one of my favorites, as it has a syllabary, but includes some syllables NOT in Webster's, has simple reading lessons (like the 1908 Webster's), has a pronunciation system like McGuffey's (which we love and use), and... the kicker... the "Writing" alphabet script is just like my own (and now ds's) handwriting, except for the capital S. :) Oh, oh! and c's and g's are nicely marked for when they are "soft", right in the syllabary!!! Okay, I'm really geeky about these things. :lol:
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You might consider Rod and Staff's 4th grade History/Geography: Homelands Around the World.
I'll be using this with two of my kids this year. It looks like we can complete the book in a year with about two lessons a week, and I'll include the map drawing practice daily.
R&S books are unabashedly Christian. You can see samples at www.rodandstaffbooks.com (a distributor).
:iagree: with Hunter and SilverMoon.
We're doing this for 4th as well. As a matter of fact, we've already begun (5 weeks in). So far, so good!
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Robinson Crusoe.
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Also having a Dickens of a time searching. I used to use Google to search the forum (key words + site:welltrainedmind.com), but now that isn't working either. Oh dear!