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Help...dd crying over R & S grammer


farmwife
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Hi all!

We are done with day 3. I used R & S Grammer 2 last year with my dd. She did well with it. I have always planned on using it. In fact I have all the R & Staff Grammer books up to 6. (Very pathetic....I know) Anyhow, I was planning on just forging ahead on this particular grammer road. My good friend used it with her daughters with great success.

 

As stated we are on day 3. Day 1: Daughter opened up her workbox and sat down with the book and cried....we just did it orally. I had no idea she dis-liked it so much.

Day 2: I introduced her to a worksheet yesterday...again crying.

Day 3: I wanted her to do one small exercise.....more crying.

 

I really don't want to torture the poor girl. She is more emotional than some, but I seriously am questioning if this is the 'right' program for her or...do I just ditch the worksheets and do it all orally.

 

Any ideas, thoughts, encouragement?

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White board and a huge variety of dry erase markers to choose from! Do it orally and have her show off her skills on the board with 1-2 sentences from each section. White boards make everything better :D especially where there are 20 colors to choose from!

 

Oh, and try every other day to start...3 is a big jump from the gentle start in 2. Being the start of a new year, an ease into grammar might be a wise choice.

 

HTH!!

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I am using R&S English2 as well. Because I am not concerned about the volume of writing, as our curriculum affords many other opportunities, I do some exercises orally, but also have adapted a page protector to slip over the textbook page. We use colored white board markers to do many of the exercises right over the printed sentences in the book. For example, she can draw a capital over a small letter to start a sentence, add a period or question mark, draw lines to connect the fill in the blank portion. It has worked well for us! :)

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I was just reading the WTM again recently and I think I recall SWB saying that should be done orally. I often copied the pages using my scanner so the kids could circle, underline, or fill in small blanks. Unless you are using it for handwriting practice as well, I don't see the need to write too much for grammar.

 

FWIW, I believe grammar is like math in a way. I've seen my dd11 hit walls with both subjects. We take a little time off or do fun activities to reinforce mastered skills and after a while she is ready to go again! In fact, she is doing that very thing in grammar now.

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My kids fought R&S and so I changed. I tried a couple of different things, but found that it wasn't R&S. It was grammar in general!! So, we went back to R&S last year.

 

I do R&S slowly, behind the actual grade my kids are in. I'll finish R&S 5 with my 6th and 7th graders this year. It's so rigorous that I'm fine with that. We do a combination of oral, worksheets, and written. However, even when we do the written exercises, I only assign about half.

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I am an R&S Grammar user 2 through 6 now. My ds did 2 no problem. When we hit 3 it was a big jump and so we did more orally than I did with my older dd, but he really enjoyed the diagramming (go figure). You've already gotten some good suggestions for making it more fun for your dd. I would encourage you to try to stick with the program because it is so thorough and once your dd gets a little older she will probably take to it better.

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I have the same book. So was it the dictionary exercise or the first sentence lesson she was doing?

 

If children do not use a dictionary, it can be frustrating to understand, so I would just revisit the dictionary throughout the year until she gets a hang of it.

 

Try doing more orally; we do most of it that way.

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Hi~ I just wanted to encourage you about your Dd and her English tears.

I have had this same thing happen to my Dd but with Math.

Turns out it wasn't because she didn't like the curriculum, it was because she just didn't quite understand it and she gets frustrated really easy.

I looked at her and held her and said, "It's o.k., don't get discouraged, we will do this together. This is all new and it might seem hard, but we will learn it together."

She was then fine after and has since.

From what I know R&S is good and I'm using it as well for a few subjects. If she's retaining, then I would stick with it. You don't really want to start hoping curriculums, because they are all a little different and your child might get a learning gap.

HTH, and good luck!

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Hi~ I just wanted to encourage you about your Dd and her English tears.

I have had this same thing happen to my Dd but with Math.

Turns out it wasn't because she didn't like the curriculum, it was because she just didn't quite understand it and she gets frustrated really easy.

I looked at her and held her and said, "It's o.k., don't get discouraged, we will do this together. This is all new and it might seem hard, but we will learn it together."

She was then fine after and has since.

From what I know R&S is good and I'm using it as well for a few subjects. If she's retaining, then I would stick with it. You don't really want to start hoping curriculums, because they are all a little different and your child might get a learning gap.

HTH, and good luck!

 

Very encouraging.

 

Guess what, we had a good day!!! NO CRYING!:D I had her read through the lesson. She found the sentences. Yay!! Then I had her work on the worksheet (Lesson 4-worksheet 2) I just gave her a bit at a time and each time she got finished she did the next part. It was great! All together it took us maybe 10 minutes. She did a great job!

 

So thankful for all the encouragement and ideas! I feel more confident with the curriculum and less stressed about trying to do it all as written.

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Heck yeah.....we do ALL of it orally in about 3 minutes!
:iagree: We do it orally and with the white board. The only time we ever used the worksheets was if they were struggling with a certain concept.

 

Yep, it's WAY more fun orally, and my kids did very well! I learned too, as I did it along with them!

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Oh, so you are not reading the lesson with her? I find it so helpful at that age to read the lesson and interact with my boys throughout it. Nothing seems as bad if they get to do it with me.

 

I would love to do the lesson with her but I need to hop...from one child...to another child....to another child....to another child.....to another child.

 

Life with many littles...make homeschooling very interesting.

Edited by farmwife
forgot a child!
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We are also using on R&S 3. I just decided two days ago 45 minutes is way too long of a time to spend on grammer, so we have cut it down by half. We just don't do all the problems. dd is enjoying it a little more now.

 

Seriously, if you do all of it orally except the written portion (and then not even all of it), it will not take that long. We also skip problems if the boys are clearly having no difficulty with it.

 

I photocopy pages as well for my boys to mark up rather than having them write the entire sentences. They are getting their writing practice in Writing with Ease.

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