s/o CW - tell me if you like it!

[TXMary2]

I am planning on using CW for Older Beginners. I already bought the Harvey's Grammar stuff. I need to order the Aesop/Homer books and the Beginner's Poetry. DS is 14 and while he has really improved on writing with the use of Apologia's Jump In I thought using CW might really help. Am I wrong? I really don't want to spend $180 if it is confusing. Help!

[SilverMoon]

We use and love it. My kids will say the same thing. :) I can't imagine ever switching writing curriculums. Their writing has improved and those skills have carried across into their other writing.

 

Some things that may be helpful for you to keep in mind:

-The cores were written by one author before the workbooks were written by a different author. The cores were written so you could design your own writing curriculum using just that core. The workbook does a lot of the grunt work for you.

-Before you begin: Use the student workbook as your guide to map out what you think your week ought to look like. There is a sample in the instructor guide, but it's just a sample that you're not bound to. If you search on this board you'll find weekly schedules from CW users. I'll add ours below.

-We've never taken as long as the time recommendations in CW say we'll need.

-Feel free to tweak or simply leave out parts that are redundant for your student. For example, my fourth grader using Aesop doesn't do the spelling analysis, but I have her do vocab/synonym work with the words instead. She's used FLL and R&S for grammar, so the grammar she's found in Aesop has been entirely review. I don't make her find every noun or verb in the model when her analysis and imitation page tells her to, but I do have her complete all the rewriting exercises.

 

Our typical five day week CW schedule looks like this.

Day 1: Read the new model, orally discuss/analyze it with Mom, independently outline/break down the story (Aesop uses outlines, Homer introduces other tools)

Day 2: A&I day, we do all the A&I pages on this day, they need me to give them the ten assigned words and walk them through new concepts

Day 3: rough draft, done entirely independently

Day 4: editing, they edit it themselves first, then turn it in to me for editing

Day 5: type the final draft in Word, done entirely independently

 

For my oldest the rough draft can occasionally take more than one day so it doesn't cut deep into his time for other subjects. On those days I'll bump editing to day 5, and let him use day 4 to finish the rough draft. Editing is never done on the same day the rough draft is finished.

[momee]

We're on week 8 or 9. I'm finding it harder now than at the beginning for some reason. That said, I have to reread everything I'm supposed to.

 

Older Beginners is pretty clear in what to do when, but I'm having a hard time tying it all together in to some sort of schedule each week. I can see it repeats the same skill set (almost) over and over.

 

I am happy with what we've done so far, but I feel like I'm forgetting and missing stuff. You'll be happy you have the Harvey's I bet. I think the different grammar book we're using instead of Harvey's is making me feel like I'm not doing it right.

 

DD could take it or leave it :001_huh:. No real response from her yet.

[TXMary2]

Thank you for the sample schedule info. I suppose if we start using it and we don't like it I can always sell it. I really, really want to like it. I like the samples and I like how organized it seems with regards to what to put in notebooks how detailed those instructions seem.

[TerriMI]

Our family really likes it! I agree with Silver Moon that you use the student guides to plan out what to be done each day of the week.

 

Yes! It reinforces grammar by integrating the study of grammar with real literature. I think it therefore, helps dc with their reading comprehension; it empasizes the use of grammar in understanding/decoding more difficult sentences or passages. This carries over to their writing in that their using models to imitate, helps develop dc's style, especially in sentence structure and word choices. Of course, the progym gives them style or arrangement models for paragraphs and essays. So there you go: reading comprehension, grammar reinforcement, style and arrangement as well as topics of invention; it works on the arts of language all with good models. It's certainly worth the money, time and effort.

 

Betcha like it.

[NancyNellen]

We are in our fifth year with CW and I am a big, big fan. It is solid, thorough, and easy to understand if you persevere through the first year or so. I found Homer to have the biggest learning curve as far as wrapping my brain around why we were doing what we were doing. But I will definitely not switch. I have three currently using the program - just finishing up Maxim, Homer B and Aesop B. They are very solid writers.

[Beth in Central TX]

I'm a big fan of CW. We've used Aesop, Homer, Poetry for Beg, and Diogenes Maxim, and I plan to use the pogram through Demosthenes.