Need Curriculum Advice

[acurtis75]

I'm hoping for some advice from more experienced homeschoolers..and appreciative that this forum exists where I can ask for advice!

 

I have a daughter who turned 6 last month whom I've been homeschooling since she was 3 1/2. I'm at the end of WWE and year one of FLL and I'm trying to decide whether to skip ahead or just work through the next year more quickly. Here's an overview of where we are/what we currently do:

 

We're almost done with book 8 of ETC. She reads on a high school level and has been doing so for well over a year now. (last summer she read all of the Narnia books in about 2 weeks). I felt obligated to finish the curriculum to make sure we didn't miss any phonics rules even though she is reading so well. Her reading comprehension is also excellent.

 

She doesn't require much actual instruction on my part...she is capable of doing most, if not all, of her schoolwork by herself. Of course, because she's 6 she still needs me to make her do it....but not necessarily to explain things to her.

 

In addition to WWE & FLL we do Easy Grammar Daily Grams Grade 2 for basic Grammar Rules. We're almost done with it as well. All three of these books seemed relatively easy for her and we were half way through the Daily Grams before starting the WWE, FLL so they were especially easy for her. Again...I did them anyway because I didn't want to miss any basics.

 

Spelling Workout - 2 lessons left in book C (she's only missed 1 pre-test word in the entire book)

Prima Latina - almost done with book

Story of the World Year 1

Kay Arthur How to Study the Bible for Yourself (she does this by herself with little or no help from me...I just check it)

 

Math-u-see Gamma - started in January...breezing through it

 

Apologia Human Anatomy & Physiology - going through very slow because there is a lot of content and mommy's not so good at getting all the necessary experiment stuff together and it keeps getting put off

 

We also go Geography Songs memory work & Mind Benders

 

Sorry to be so long-winded but wanted to provide as much background as possible. The decision I'm struggling with now is whether to skip certain things (like FLL & WWE 2) to move ahead a year or two to get to a level that's more challenging or if I should just keep going through the stuff that's really easy for her and move through more quickly. Any advice/opinions would be appreciated.

[Bird Girl]

If she read all of the Narnia books in two weeks, I think you're wasting her time, to a certain extent, with First Language Lessons-type stuff. I would drop that in favor of more time spent reading literature. We use Sonlight, coupled with Story of the World for history and literature together, but there are many other good lists of classic books that are engaging and challenging for kids who have strong language abilities.

 

We use Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts materials as a supplement to reading good-quality literature, but I would say that you don't need to start with that right away unless you want to do so. The first level (called the "Island" level, since two of the titles are Grammar Island and Sentence Island) are billed as being written for "Grade-level fourth graders and gifted third graders" but really, if you're doing them one-on-one with a gifted homeschooler, you could easily do them with her when she's seven. The question is really whether there's any particular benefit to starting the series at that age. There are three elementary-school levels, (Island, Town, Voyage) and then three secondary-school levels. If you start Island at age 7, I would plan to take more than three years to finish the elementary level--perhaps spread them over four. MCT materials discuss the patterns of language on a much more sophisticated level then something like FLL--they're not intended so much to provide the preview-learn-review repetition that non-gifted curricula rely on. Instead, they provide a framework for a Socratic discussion of how language and thinking happen, and how they can be shared between writer and reader.

[abbeyej]

Well, a few thoughts...

 

Personally, I think the grammar in FLL is well worth doing and doing well. That said, I think you could fly through FLL2 before the end of *this* school year and put her in FLL3 for next year (which requires more writing and will likely be a bit more challenging for her). I think you'd probably be fine going with either WWE2 or 3 if she's finding *all* aspects of WWE easy so far. That said, I think each level has such a great range of selections that it's sort of a shame to skip completely. For myself, I chose to double up on WWE days (so we'd do a copywork or dictation *and* a narration each day) and I chose to move more quickly into having my kids write their own narrations. Basically, whenever I thought they were ready, we went on to the next phase and I ignored if the book said for *me* to write narrations for dd and then have her copy one sentence of her narration if I knew she was perfectly capable of writing her own three-sentence narration (and correcting with my help), etc. That type of thing.

 

So, for those two, I vote for speeding up, for telescoping multiple lessons together, but not for skipping. If you want to continue with Daily Grams, I think you can skip to level 4 in the fall (while doing FLL3) without any problems.

 

For spelling? Bah. Drop it. Or, if not, then get Spelling Power (a used older edition is fine), give her the placement tests, and work from there. It's a total waste of time to do Spelling Workout with her at a level far below her abilities. Both of mine are natural spellers and Spelling Workout was useless (even used several years "up") for either of them. I do think the "editing" exercises were somewhat worthwhile, but not enough to make it worth using the whole book. Spelling Power at least has the advantage of letting you place her at the correct level and providing enough material that you won't have to worry about finishing three books in a single year. That said, I found with both of mine that their spelling improved regardless of whether or not we "studied" spelling each day, so eventually we dropped it completely and used that time for other topics.

 

For Latin, you could continue with Latina Christiana. Since she's a good reader and speller, she'll do fine with it. If you're looking for another approach, Lively Latin is a good program for middle elementary. More "fun" than LC, but also very solid. Minimus makes for a fun supplement for this age group.

 

SOTW, Bible, Geography Songs, fun pre-logic all sound like they're working out for you. Right?

 

With math, are you satisfied with MUS? There's certainly no problem with working through early arithmetic quickly for a child who "gets" it. But there are also other, more challenging programs available. At the least, I would probably supplement with Singapore word problems...

[kathkath]

how about switching to R&S English 2 and only have her do the odd #s? I would think FLL too slow.

[4Hisglory]

I'm going to agree with continuing to use FLL and WWE. Being an excellent reader does not mute out the need for a strong understanding of grammar concepts,parts of speech,and dictation along with learning how to write well composed thoughts and ideas. You will probably move through them quickly but it will be worth it. Have you looked into Institute for Excellence in Writing at all? That would seem like a good next step and would add some new and more challenging concepts after WWE, in my opinion. Enjoy keeping up with your dc,it sounds like fun! :001_smile:

[abbeyej]

how about switching to R&S English 2 and only have her do the odd #s? I would think FLL too slow.

 

My point was that it's possible to *really* *fly* through levels 1 and 2 of FLL. My approach when my kids were younger was to skim through upcoming lessons on Sunday evening and figure out about what we could cover that week. I might keep an index card in my hand to jot very brief notes. I might decide that one lesson was completely redundant review and we could skip it, another had two terms we should review, and a third was worth doing more or less as written. That would be one day's worth of work. And so on.

 

We did FLL1/2 in about 6 months -- my older one when he was 4 and my younger one when she was about 5.5...

 

I've been very grateful to have gone through it with both of mine. It made beginning Latin so much easier, and proved very helpful in all sorts of other elementary studies.

 

But you don't have to do it as written. For many kids it's slower and there's more repetition than is necessary. The point is for kids to learn the material and practice the skills. If they've mastered that, then move on. Make sure they understand and can apply what they've learned, but once they've done that, don't wait around just because the book was written with some mythical average child in mind.

[acurtis75]

Thanks for all the suggestions! You've given me a lot to think about.

 

@Bird Girl Thank you for the suggestions. She read A LOT of classic literature but at this point we just discuss it and I haven't done any formal lessons after reading but I might check in to that.

 

I really like the structure of the FFL and WWE but I appreciate all the ideas for "flying" through it.

 

@abbeyej Yes, the Latin, pre-logic & Geography are working great. She also loves Story of the World. History is her favorite subject and she's become somewhat of an expert on Greek and Roman mythology.

 

I do like MUS and did some supplementation this year with a Singapore book but probably the level of Singapore was too easy because I don't recall there being many word problems. Do most of you find MUS too easy or something? There are word problems in every one of the lessons we use and she likes the tips and tricks shared on the DVD so I guess I'm wondering what we might be missing out on because the only other curriculum we used for math was Horizon K before we started MUS and we both hated that one.

 

As for the spelling...thanks for telling me about your experience. I've been considering dropping it for a while but feeling obligated to keep it because others say it's important. I've switched curriculum 3 x's. We started with SpellWell and she never spelled any words wrong on the pretest...we tried A Reason for Spelling...same experience and lots of busywork/phonics review then finally settled on the Spelling Workout because I thought at least the proofreading was giving her some benefit and she liked it but we have been covering 3 or 4 lessons per week. If the new book goes as quickly I'll take your advice and just drop it.

[Crimson Wife]

Here's the sequence I've hit upon for my kids:

 

FLL 1/2 compacted + WWE 1 once the child has the physical writing skills

Michael Clay Thompson's "island" level

Don Killgallon's Sentence Composing for Elementary School

MCT's "town" level

Killgallon Story Grammar for Elementary and/or Grammar for Middle School

MCT's "voyage level"

 

I also plan to use The Paragraph Book series (most likely prior to MCT's Paragraph Town) and the Mark Twain Media Sentence Diagramming workbook (probably after completing Practice Town).

 

For spelling, I like Spelling Power for my "natural" speller DD and All About Spelling for my DS.

 

Figuratively Speaking is a great way to introduce literary terms written at about a late elementary/early middle school level

 

Edited to clarify: of the above, my oldest has done FLL 1/2, WWE 1, Killgallon Story Grammar, The Paragraph Book series, MCT "town", and Mark Twain diagramming, and is currently working through Killgallon Grammar for Middle School and Figuratively Speaking.

 

I'm undecided what to do with her next year to tide her over to MCT "voyage". Right now, I'm leaning towards Image Grammar by Noden, Ellen McHenry's Excavating English, and maybe this writing course.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Crimson Wife

[2smartones]

I'm also going to second the suggestion for R&S English. I prefer to do R&S orally, and if something needs more work, I'll do the worksheets or tests. R&S English starts at grade 2 for the first book, but really, grades 2 and 3 (and some of 4) are very, very similar and can be condensed into 1-2 years for a child who's really good with language skills. R&S is heavy on grammar, so even by condensing, you won't be skipping or missing anything. If you want to slow anything down, slow down on the "star'd" lessons that have writing or on the ones that have poetry. There's a pretty big jump between grades 4 and 5, but I think we were able to do books 2 thru 4 in just one year (3 terms - year round schooling). We breezed through 2, spent the bulk of our time on 3, and then reviewed with 4. I like the worksheets and tests that come with R&S because you can use them as pretests to enable you to skip (without questioning yourself) several lessons at once, or like I said, skip all the lessons except the ones that focus on something other than grammar (like poetry).

Edited March 21, 2011 by 2smartones

[Dmmetler]

Can I throw another iron into the fire?

 

My DD is LOVING combining Shurley Grammar Jingles with MCT. Shurley has a pack that's the chants from grades 3-8th, and it's providing much the same material as FLL as far as memorization goes. She creates her own examples. So we'll read a section of Grammar Island, and she'll go through the Jingles and pick the ones that go with it to chant, and write about it.

 

I bought the Shurley CD on a whim mostly because LfC was using the same labeling conventions and I thought it would be useful (since MCT doesn't use the same labels in some cases)-I hadn't realized just how much my grammar geek kid would love it.

 

Also, while it's not out yet, Basher Books Grammar is due to be released in the next few months, which should be a fun supplement.

[acurtis75]

Can I throw another iron into the fire?

 

My DD is LOVING combining Shurley Grammar Jingles with MCT. Shurley has a pack that's the chants from grades 3-8th, and it's providing much the same material as FLL as far as memorization goes. She creates her own examples. So we'll read a section of Grammar Island, and she'll go through the Jingles and pick the ones that go with it to chant, and write about it.

 

I bought the Shurley CD on a whim mostly because LfC was using the same labeling conventions and I thought it would be useful (since MCT doesn't use the same labels in some cases)-I hadn't realized just how much my grammar geek kid would love it.

 

Also, while it's not out yet, Basher Books Grammar is due to be released in the next few months, which should be a fun supplement.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I decided against Shurley books because I didn't really feel my dd needed so much review per concept and the books are so expensive but never even considered buying just the jingles. My dd loves to sing and make up songs so this is a perfect suggestion for her. I'm going to pick it up right away. LFC is Latin for Children right? How do you like the program? I used Song School Latin then Prima Latina (because she was only 4 when we finished Song School and wasn't ready for LFC). Now I find I liked both programs and am having trouble deciding where to go from here.

[Dmmetler]

Latin for Children has been great, with the caveat that we've done it all orally except for a few of the activity book pages and that DD didn't like the DVD much. I may try to have her go through the DVDs in a few years, as a review, when she's more the age they're intended for. She enjoys that chant style and the analysis part. It's been Minimus, though, that has really inspired her to write little dialogues in Latin, and to use the grammar.

 

 

 

The Jingle Time CD and Book aren't all that expensive, and I suspect they've given my DD as much benefit as she would have gotten if we'd done all of Shurley. She enjoys coming up with sentences to demonstrate the skills, and it's dovetailing nicely with MCT.

[TJinLOCA]

Another vote for Rod & Staff English from me. All three of my kids were accelerated learners and they ate R&S up! It's wonderfully thorough and rigorous ... one of my best friends is an English professor, and she couldn't believe how in-depth the grammar instruction in my daughter's 8th grade book was. She said it was better than any college English course she had ever seen!