JudoMom Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I've only just begun chapter 1, but I already picked up a couple of great ideas from the introduction! I'm so glad I decided to click the purchase button :001_smile:. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 We're loving it as well. I'm still absorbing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt_Uhura Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Glad you're enjoying it and not trying to kill me! :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Glad you're enjoying it and not trying to kill me! :001_smile: Well it is a jungle out there and we have to stick together, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt_Uhura Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 :iagree: Writing is a jungle! Full of vines waiting to entangle us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin in DFW Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I am actually all done. I plan to go through it again and do the exercises myself and then have ds (and maybe dd18) do them as well. I have purchased a tea kettle and teas (we have tiny cups) for teatime. I have wanted to implement this for ages, but never have. I also found a couple of books on nature by naturalists for reading aloud (half price books) and some of Julie's favorite books on writing (Writing Down the Bones, Bird by Bird). These are for me (and my dd22...she's a journalism major). Anyway...LOVE BW...LOVE TWJ...this is how I envision writing to be with ds. This is how I wrote as a child...freely...with no concern about the mechanics...only the words and ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Was this the digital version though the Homeschool Buyers co op? I'm so tempted... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Was this the digital version though the Homeschool Buyers co op? I'm so tempted... Yes, available until the end of March. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Oh, I think I want it. It seems like I've been looking at BW for years and the dollars were holding me back. Did you print it out? My eyes give me fits if I try to read too much on the computer screen. The savings would be worth the time and effort to print it vs. purchasing the binder version directly. I wonder why I'm so chicken to try BW, maybe it's my last hope and I don't want to let it go. Yes, available until the end of March. :D Thanks. I think I might just do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 Was this the digital version though the Homeschool Buyers co op? I'm so tempted... Yep. I couldn't pass up the sale, and while it hurt to press the purchase button (I went ahead with buying both TWJ and Help for High School), I'm so glad I did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 See, I just talked myself out of the sale thinking WJ would be too loosey-goosey for me just when I want more hand holding. Now you all are tempting me again. Did this thread start with a warning label? :toetap05: :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Thank you, JudoMom. I don't think I can pass up the sale either. Help for High School too...Oh, I missed that. Yep. I couldn't pass up the sale, and while it hurt to press the purchase button (I went ahead with buying both TWJ and Help for High School), I'm so glad I did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 See, I just talked myself out of the sale thinking WJ would be too loosey-goosey for me just when I want more hand holding. Now you all are tempting me again. Did this thread start with a warning label? :toetap05: :D It's ALL the Capt's fault :lol:! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomOfOneFunOne Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I've only just begun chapter 1, but I already picked up a couple of great ideas from the introduction! I'm so glad I decided to click the purchase button :001_smile:. I ♥ Writer's Jungle and I ♥ ♥ ♥ Captain Urhura for introducing it to me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt_Uhura Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rafiki Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) My first purchase from the Homeschool Buyer's Co op is a done deal. I need to find and plan some time to begin reading my deal that was too good to pass up. Now that I have it in my hot little hands...I'm a little excited. Jftr this is for next year. I'm not a curriculum junkie, I could be, but I'm good at resisting after all these years. (LoL, just not in this case.) Edited March 19, 2011 by Tammyla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I am delighted to hear you all are enjoying The Writer's Jungle. You will find that it is a resource that keeps on giving. You will go through once and pull out what you can use at this point. Then in a few months or even a year, you will go through it again and pull out more ideas that you can use. The first go round, I wanted to do everything and do it perfectly.:tongue_smilie:Take your time. There is time to grow and figure out what works for you. It makes far more sense to me than CW or even LToW. Of course, it doesn't solve my problem of creating assignments for academic writing, but it has improved Swimmer Dude's writing overall. :hurray::hurray::hurray: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 We did a few freewrite lessons this week. My son decided it would be good to write java code. :lol::lol: It was better than the first day when I told him the idea was to get words on paper. That was exactly what he wrote "words on paper, more words on paper...." it went a little more. He has a unique voice at least. :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 (edited) Hmmm. Can this be viewed on my Kindle? and is there anywhere we can view samples? thx! Edited March 19, 2011 by Halcyon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 Hmmm. Can this be viewed on my Kindle? I did put it on my Kindle. I like to view a whole page at once on PDFs, so the print is quite tiny, but it's readable for me. Oh, and I do have Building Thinking Skills Hands On, 1, & 2 and I like them. They have a good mix of different thinking exercises :001_smile:. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I did put it on my Kindle. I like to view a whole page at once on PDFs, so the print is quite tiny, but it's readable for me. Oh, and I do have Building Thinking Skills Hands On, 1, & 2 and I like them. They have a good mix of different thinking exercises :001_smile:. Thanks so much. Are there sample pages anywhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I would love to see some samples too. Dawn Hmmm. Can this be viewed on my Kindle? and is there anywhere we can view samples? thx! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 You can preview it here. http://www.bravewriter.com/program/home-study-courses/the-writers-jungle/ (this is a warning, danger, contagious curriculum consumption may be caught by clicking on this link. Proceed at your own risk.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 A different kind of warning: This is not a writing curriculum, but a writing philosophy that is full of practical and enjoyable writing exercises to try with your children. If you need a schedule with specific assignments, this may not be the curriculum for you. I know after the last round of "Jungle Fever, " there were the usual comments of trying to "wrap one's head around it" and figuring out how to use it on a daily basis. If you buy it, plan on spending time with the program and absorbing the philosophy. In hindsight, I wish I had spent more time with this program in fifth grade and mapped out a plan for middle school. I could have saved time, money, and frustration that way. Between SWB and Writer's Jungle (feeds the creative for me which SWB doesn't) and an occasional specialty workbook, you (and you know who you are) are all set. I am guessing a few of you are looking at WJ as a breath of fresh air after everything else you have looked at and/or used.:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Ok, with that said, anyone have it already scheduled out and want to share your schedule with us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommy4ever Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I am just starting to read it. I'm planning on reading it once in it's entirety, it'll be read quickly, I'm loving it, before implementing anything. Even in the first pages of the book, the introduction, she offers several great ideas. Then I'm going through again, this time a little slower, making notes, choosing ideas to use. I'll like start using something as soon as the first read is over, and go from there. How to use it? I don't think there is a wrong way. She offers up this. Implement one idea at a time, build on that. Pick a few to use, go from there. Change it up with the writing won't come. When it gets hard to write, pick a new idea. See a trend? There will be an abundance of techniques and exercises to use, and it's unrealistic to expect to use them all at once. And I'm only on chapter 2(?) I have a hard time teaching writing, because I don't know all the mechanics :tongue_smilie: that is being blown out of the water. I'm thinking this is going to be great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keptwoman Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Ok, with that said, anyone have it already scheduled out and want to share your schedule with us? My take is that it doesn't really work like that. I tend to schedule plain old copywork/dictation/freewrite on a weekly basis. We manage the occasional teatime. And I spend concentrated blocks of time on writing where we move through the exercises to complete a finished piece of work. There may be others who are much more organised than me though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 This morning I began reading, and wish I'd ordered this years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommy4ever Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 This morning I began reading, and wish I'd ordered this years ago. :iagree::iagree::iagree: I'm considering getting the High school one for dd13(well 14 on Saturday). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 My take is that it doesn't really work like that. I tend to schedule plain old copywork/dictation/freewrite on a weekly basis. We manage the occasional teatime. And I spend concentrated blocks of time on writing where we move through the exercises to complete a finished piece of work. There may be others who are much more organised than me though. Phew! I thought it was just me.:D This is similar to how it gets done here with a few variations. This is an old post that explains how I was using Writer's Jungle with MCT up to that point: "Okay Michele, I don't know if this will help but it's what language arts had evolved into by the end of our school year which was in May. For Swimmer Dude, who was in 6th grade, language arts involves four areas: literary analysis, grammar, vocabulary, and writing. Note taking and outlining occur across the curriculum; however, typically outlining happens during history and note taking occurs during science mostly because of the spines I used. Every morning we read aloud during breakfast for at least an half an hour. It will usually be whatever is on for literary analysis, maybe a short story or part of a novel. We also do a poem a day. I read in the evening for another half hour. (Brave Writer Lifestyle #1) This is done 5 days a week along with a short lit analysis lesson. I typically would expect to do this only 4 days a week but the Dude got excited for the first time ever, so we rolled with it. We did vocabulary Mon.-Thurs. this year using Caesar's English II. We read through the new words together and he makes note cards for review. We work through the lesson a page or two a day and constantly review. Easy, no brainer to schedule. Grammar was three days a week in Practice Voyage with a bit of diagramming thrown in here and there. Remember, grammar practice shows up in the vocabulary and writing books so there is really more. Grammar is done Mon., Tues., and Thurs. Writing isn't so simple. We do formal lessons on Mon., Wed., and Thursday. On Tuesday, we do copywork. (BWL #2) I really like to use Julie Bogart's Boomerang pieces for this but they are fairly expensive. She picks involved passages that challenge the student's skills regarding punctuation and grammar. She also usually explains why she chose a passage from a literary sense and this is where I like to incorporate a mini-lit lesson. If she is talking about alliteration and you want to go into it in more detail, this is where you pull out FS. (No full-sized lit lesson this day) Dictation happens on Wednesday. (BWL #3) On thing I have done in the past per Julie's instructions is to type up the passage without punctuation and with poor grammar and let Swimmer Dude edit it. We ran out of time a lot this year for this but it's very helpful. (For both of us.:tongue_smilie:) Fridays, instead of Freewriting (BWL #4), we do Unjournaling (Thanks, WildIris!). Obviously with the work described above, we are already engaged in learning about literary elements (BWL #4) and we are doing writing projects (BWL #5). Art Appreciation as far as oral narration always happens during art or art history class. (BWL #6) That's it for this year and the Brave Writer Lifestyle. This coming fall I would like to add in 2 movie nights a month at least. (BWL #7) Happygrrl does this a lot I think, and I'd like to talk to her more about this. The beauty of this is that it would take some stress of the school day and I could include the older kids in the analysis process. T This year because we will be studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, I plan on moving one of the morning read alouds (probably Friday's) to the afternoon. We'll do Tea Time with alternating poetry and Shakespeare sessions. (BWL #8 & 9) I'll miss our poem a day but it's time to move on. The last thing I would like to incorporate is the Nature Journal.(BWL #10). I thought I had a vision for a medieval science this year, but Swimmer Dude dropped the bomb by saying he wanted to not do science but nature studies this year. This means we can hike and he loves to hike. I'm not giving up the science but will go back to using Barb's (HarmonyArtMom) Nature Challenges one or two days a week. Oddly enough, the first homeschooling book I ever read was Wild Days: Creating Discovery Journals by Karen Skidmore Rackcliff. It remains both a goal and a favorite resource." TMI!:tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another Lynn Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Lisa, I'm so glad you posted these examples of how you applied BWL through the week. It was really helpful to me (and might be that final push I need to go buy it 50% off!) Let's see.... what's the minimum number of writing programs I need on the shelf to call myself a middle school homeschool Mom? I might be getting there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin in DFW Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 when you say you do "formal writing lessons" on Mon, Tues, Thurs...what exactly do you mean??? do you use a curriculum or are you assigning from subjects??? ...we are implementing BWL things a little at a time this week until the end of our school year...just wondering if you use a specific writing program, but use BW across the subjects??? Thanks, Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted March 22, 2011 Share Posted March 22, 2011 Bump. when you say you do "formal writing lessons" on Mon, Tues, Thurs...what exactly do you mean??? do you use a curriculum or are you assigning from subjects??? ...we are implementing BWL things a little at a time this week until the end of our school year...just wondering if you use a specific writing program, but use BW across the subjects??? Thanks, Robin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abbeygurl4 Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 A different kind of warning: This is not a writing curriculum, but a writing philosophy that is full of practical and enjoyable writing exercises to try with your children. If you need a schedule with specific assignments, this may not be the curriculum for you. I know after the last round of "Jungle Fever, " there were the usual comments of trying to "wrap one's head around it" and figuring out how to use it on a daily basis. .:D Would it be a writing curriculum if you added a subscription to "Arrow"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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