MCT Island Level People

[Paige]

How long is it or did it take you to finish this level and what do you do after it is completed? We started in August and my son has finished Grammar Island, Building Language, and Music of the Hemispheres already. We are in Sentence Island now and I think we'll finish it by Feb. at the latest, but probably more like early or mid January. He is doing one practice sentence a day and I haven't checked how many we have left but it takes no time at all to do so I'm not concerned. We are continuing to do 1 poem a day, 1 new word stem a week, and 2 vocabulary words a week, and I am happy with how it is working for us. I'm wondering what we should do when we finish with Sentence Island? I don't want to move on to the next MCT level yet but can't imagine doing nothing but practice sentences, poems, vocab., and random writing assignments for the rest of the year! Are we moving through this too quickly? It doesn't seem like we are going at an especially rapid pace. we have just been reading through the books one at a time and stopping for the day when we feel like it.

 

What would you suggest doing between MCT levels to reinforce what he's learned and prepare for the next level? Or maybe something else for language arts that I'm not thinking about that is not really covered well in the early MCT levels? He doesn't really have a reading curriculum, maybe something for that? I don't want something that will take a full year since we'd be starting sometime in Jan/or Feb.

[Dana]

You can go back (if you haven't) and do the writing assignments in Sentence Island (back of the book in the TM). I think if I let my son just read the story, he'd move through Sentence Island really quickly.

 

With MoH, we're often reading the full poem rather than just the selection in MoH. Building Language goes a bit slower for us too when we look up words in the dictionary (both English and Spanish).

 

We aren't using a reading curriculum, but Writing with Ease seems to fit nicely in for us and my son has enjoyed reading the full stories that pieces are selected from in the books.

 

You also could just keep reading (Classics in the Classroom has some good ideas) and analyze selections using tools from Island level.

[Capt_Uhura]

How old is your son? WE started in January and finished around June I believe. The boys did do a few weeks of Practice Island during the summer when they were with their grandparents. We also do WWE for copywork/dictation and narration so we had plenty to keep us busy as well as freewriting. We took a Bravewriter class that spring so we had plenty to keep us busy. I think if he's writing his narrations in history/science/lit and narrating to you and discussing what he's reading, that's enough.

[Penelope]

We started in August and are probably 3/4 of the way through the books, except for Practice Island. We do 3-4 sentences a week in that.

 

I have ds write narrations in history and science, and we are also doing WWE3. When we are done with Island level I will probably move into Town level, but just the grammar and writing portions. Either that or just get a workbook from Evan Moore or somewhere for basic paragraph writing. I have Sonlight's Diamond Notes but I don't like them too much. I am also fitting in parts of FLL3, the things that I think MCT is missing, and have begun showing him basic diagramming of sentences in conjunction with Practice Island (I have him write out the basic structure and am showing him how the modifiers would be written in; we do this on the Practice Island workbook pages).

[Embassy]

Are you doing the writing assignments as you go along? I was surprised how many writing activities are in the books as you go along.

[Paige]

Are you doing the writing assignments as you go along? I was surprised how many writing activities are in the books as you go along.

 

We do some of the writing assignments. We didn't do any of the ones in the vocab book, almost all of the grammar book, and maybe half of the poetry book. I plan on doing most of the assignments in Sentence Island but we've just started it. We do whatever MCT book we are on 4 days a week so I guess we are finishing it at an average pace. I'm thinking of getting the WriteBrain writing program from the Homeschool Coop after we finish Sentence Island. He also does copywork but it is mostly for handwriting.