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GrammarGirl

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Everything posted by GrammarGirl

  1. Thanks! I'm planning to buy the Athanasius book for my kids and will read it to the class too! I guess DH and I will end up writing our own creeds curriculum. Maybe we should self-publish it afterwards since it seems there is nothing on the market now. ; )
  2. I had more time to look at the booklists tonight, and I think I've changed my mind. The lists for each grade's lesson plan option are huge, so even if some topics are repeated, there are many different books. But, since getting books from the library can be tricky (It took 2 months for the Dallas library system to fulfill my last request.) and buying all the books would be so expensive, I don't know how many people could pull this off. Maybe we could get the owner to send us review copies! ; )
  3. If you click the Books tab on the lefthand side, you can see the Amazon links for all the books.
  4. I'm disappointed no one seems to know anything about Epi Kardia. It looks neat, but after finding the scope sequence pdfs (through Google.search; I'm not sure they are available on the website anymore), my impression is that there isn't really enough to it, especially for the price. For instance, apples are a science topic in the daily plans option for 3 years in a row. This makes me think the unit program, the cheaper option, doesn't really have enough topic suggestions for the three years they claim. I also wonder why the name change and website construction is taking so long. By using the scope and sequence charts and the book lists available on the website, a person could probably reconstruct the unit program for free.
  5. My phone can't post links, but ureadthru.wordpress.com is a CM-style free plan. I haven't used it myself, but maybe it would help you.
  6. A Beka. I've thought of switching to CLE but know dd will miss the colorful A Beka pages, and it is a thorough program.
  7. Thanks! DH is using another Packer book to plan the scope & sequence as I type this.
  8. My husband is a Baptist pastor and would like me to teach a class on the creeds to our church's 5th grade and up group. (Small church, so lots of ages lumped together!) Does anyone know of any resources or curricula? TIA.
  9. Writing and reading aren't the same skill, so I would drop the expectation of writing words. TWTM addresses this.
  10. MP's B&M school, Highlands Latin, doesn't assign hs credit to elementary students for FFL. They don't intend FFL to be begun in ninth grade. It's meant to be a fourth grade class but is also used as a point of entry for older students.
  11. Teach both together. My oldest went to a preschool that used HWOT which teaches capitals first. I have had a very difficult time getting her to use lowercase because caps are her default.
  12. I wonder if we're in the same state. Lots of granite, perhaps? (My profile is outdated.) I am taking my DD to a local Christian school for the Stanford testing. A school in your area might allow homeschoolers to do the same. It's only $35 for us.
  13. Having been a writing teacher for quite a while, I am skeptical that the average ps third grader really does write "good" paragraphs. I suspect the teacher described the ideal not the reality. Encourage your son to do his best, but do not stress over grades or overwork him to "catch up." He may stumble a bit, but he will make progress. If the teacher tells you he's behind, I'd just smile, nod, thank her for the input. . . and then come here to vent!
  14. And with CLE, the mom can purchase just the materials for half a year.
  15. I find most of Martin Cothran's articles pretentious. I have really been turned off MP because of his articles: he's the author the the logic curriculum, but his articles are full of loaded statements w/ little substantiation.
  16. I voted yes, but this description does not at all describe the essays I've taught high school and college English classes for 12 years. Run from this type of rigidity!
  17. Yes, thesis paper or just essay are what I think of as well. A good teacher will not demand 3 body paragraphs if the argument lends itself to 2 or 4 paragraphs. It is the logical approach to structure that is most important. I think the reaction against structure on AP/SAT tests is merely symptomatic of an overarching philosophy that rejects conventions and standards in all of life. It's the same philosophy that rejects Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's brilliant use of meter in favor of free verse. It's the philosophy that ignores the fact that Picasso studied artistic conventions and moved onto abstract art *after* he'd mastered them. There is almost always a philosophical reason behind methodology (and if there isn't a philosophical reason, we're probably dealing with someone who has no business teaching.)
  18. Excellent explanation! I've taught my students that the 5PE is an excellent basic structure that can easily be expanded to a much longer paper. While some posters are saying a 5PE is a middle-school assignment, I have found most high schoolers and college freshman need to relearn the 5PE because they have not been taught to organize and develop their ideas. Once they work on a few 5PEs, they can move on to longer works. FWIW, I have taught in all private schools and the college I taught in was a 4-year liberal arts college, not a comm. college. Most didn't get good writing instruction when they were younger, but even for those who had, I still like having them work on argumentative 5PEs because at 17 and 18, most kids are still working on articulation and logic. About the SAT essay, I've had students use a 5PE structure and score very high. I had two excellent students thank me profusely for teaching them the 5PE after they got their scores. I almost threw up on an AP test prep manual when it told students to disregard structure in favor of being more daring and risky. The manual claimed that a student who took the time to use a structure wouldn't produce creative enough thoughts. Poppycock! The student who has *sufficient practice* with structure is not at all hindered in his ability to write engagingly.
  19. I've had a number of students thank me for teaching them the 5-paragraph essay when I taught high school English. One needed to write one for a placement test to take dual-enrollment courses just days after we covered it in my 10th grade class. No, it's not an appropriate structure for all compositions, but it is a very good tool for learning to write and defend a thesis logically and coherently. I also taught college English courses. Our entire department taught the 5-paragraph structure. No matter what the AP tests ask for and what others may say, in academia, the well-structured 5-paragraph is still in use.
  20. I taught in a UMS school for three years. There is much variety amongst the individual schools. Mine used a more traditional curriculum, but several UMS schools are classical. The concept is great, but I suggest really investigating the individual.school's implementation. My school did not do a good job of laying a philosophical foundation when they began the school, so I feel much of the education they provide is disjointed. Some of the teachers/admin were trying to model.public school methods and curricula, while others of us who had other Christian school experience worked from a different paradigm. I suspect the classical UMS schools are better run and provide a more refined and purposeful Christian education.
  21. Math facts are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts (e.g., 1+1=2; 7x3=21). A typical 6 year old is capable of learning addition and subtraction facts. Memorization comes quite easily to young children. Whether you *should* be teaching the facts now is a matter of opinion. My opinion is yes, get on those facts. Seize the opportunity when memorization comes so readily. You could use flashcards, a board game like Sum Swamp, and manipulatives like Legos or M&M's to illustrate the concepts of addition and subtraction.
  22. The teacher's book is not necessary. I did not like STT or MSTT. The pacing is much too slow, and the questions were nothing I couldn't have come up with on my own. There is a lot of writing for a first grader, so a lot of people do some of it orally, but you might as well just use narration and save the money. Overall, I was really disappointed with the guides. Unless the MP philosophy of mastery of a narrow body of info is something you are sold on, I would skip the guides.
  23. My first grader uses R&S 2 and WWE1. If you go with just R&S, do you plan to incorporate narrations elsewhere in your curriculum?
  24. I taught in a school that used it as a supplement, and I hated it. Since how much we incorporated it was left up to individual teachers, I did very little with it. The dress-ups drove me and the kids nuts. Once my juniors and I did a paraphrase together (not an IEW assignment). When we completed it, one of my students groaned and asked if we had to add dress-ups. I said absolutely not because our paragraph had such good.cohesion that adding anything would mess it up. In an attempt to create style, IEW can actually kill style.
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