WWE Questions (workbook vs text)

[ByGrace3]

I am really interested in tying our writing into our history. It is one of the things that most appeals to me about WTM. However, WWE (the workbook) does not offer us this benefit. Also, dd has trouble with the comprehension on alot of the stories (as do I with some of those crazy details!) :tongue_smilie: I wonder if she would do better narrating from something else we are reading she is enjoying. Though of course, that may backfire as she hates answering comprehension questions and might not like those books anymore. :glare:

 

I have the text, and while I have read part of it, I will admit, I am kind of confused. I know I need to spend more time with it, but the concept kind of overwhelms me. If you use WWE the text and pick your own passages, I would love to hear more. How difficult is it? How much prep time? How difficult is it to choose passages? We are doing WWE as well as doing narrations in history and science, and sometimes it seems a little much, or maybe not too much, just I would rather have the extra narrations/copywork tie into our history. Does WWS do this? Or does it work from random passages as well? I like WTM writing, I just feel WWE is almost distracting us from the concept of WTM writing :confused: does that make any sense?

 

I apparently need help :tongue_smilie: Off to peruse the text while kiddos clean their rooms . . . :auto:

[Miss Tick]

I do this, although I haven't tried to tie it to history. One tip I have is to do multiple weeks at one go. Every once in a while, I sit down, and write out a list of what is proscribed for the copy work (proper names; abbreviations like Mr., Mrs.; months of the year; etc.) for the next 10 weeks. Then I pull out a stack of books from our shelves (it would be easy to insert the history book in this stack) and start flipping through. You quickly find that some books are filled with proper names, but don't mention a single month by name, never use initials, or "sit" and "set". I also keep a list of some of the upcoming copy work tasks so that if I come across something rare I can mark it for next time. It takes me 20 to 30 minutes per book (I think), to come up with copy work, reading passages and narration selections. One nice thing is that you will be automatically tailoring the reading and comprehension questions for your family.

 

The tricky part would be trying to work ahead, since sometimes history slows down or speeds up. If you were OK with it occasionally being review you could probably work it out. Plus, the copy work doesn't HAVE to be from the reading, that could be sentences you make up to cover the assignment (if you wanted.)

[TKDmom]

I used the text to make up my own assignments for the first time this year. It was surprisingly easy, once I got into it. I was about 8 weeks into the school year when I decided to go this route, and I chose copywork and dictation passages for the rest of the year over the course of 2 or 3 evenings.

 

I chose passages from our literature reading for both my boys (who are in WWE levels 1 and 2). I followed the criteria for sentence length in the WWE text. I tried to follow the criteria for grammatical elements, but I couldn't always find exactly what I needed within a passage, so I didn't stress over it too much. I figured that if I hit at least half the specified grammatical elements, and then included other interesting sentences, then that would be good enough. Sometimes I chopped up a sentence that was in their reading so that it would be short enough, especially for my 1st grader.

 

I also printed out a bunch of narration pages with the titles of the stories we are reading (these are actually included in our lit. program, so this wasn't any extra work for me). For days that we have a narration/copywork or narration/dictation assignment, I just wrote "copywork" or "dictation" on the narration sheet to remind me what to do. I don't do comprehension question. For some reason comprehension questions turn off my kids' brains so that they can't narrate as well. It's like they can't see the forest for the trees, when I start asking detailed questions.

[hollyhock]

I totally understand where you are coming from and that is one reason why I prefer using the text to the workbook. As a PP said, it is surprisingly easy to pick your own passages.

 

On a typical day, when my 9yo needs to do a narration/dictation exercise as per WWE 4, I pick up my history book, flip to the last lesson we read (or the next one, or something relatively close), tell him to read a set number of paragraphs and done. For my 7yo, who is doing WWE 2, I pick up our science book, flip to our current lesson, read him a few paragraphs, then he narrates to me. I just use the lessons we are currently working on or reading. If I want to work from literature, I go get our current read-aloud, or whatever book my kids are reading at the time and do the same thing. Sometimes they request a book to work from because they like it. It takes me about 30 seconds to find a passage of the appropriate length and I love how this streamlines our school day.

 

Hope this helped a little. :)

[Guest]

If you are using SOTW with the Activity Guide, I don't think you need the WWE workbook. The ideas is the same...read, ask questions, ask "What is one thing you remember?", write it out, choose a sentence for copywork...all tied together. This would work for, I think all 4 levels of WWE. BUT Keep in mind responding to fictional works is not the same as responding to non-fiction.