I'm officially bogged down in CW Homer...help

[TKDmom]

I should have known his would happen. :tongue_smilie:

 

DD started working through CW Homer a few months ago. We've been going at half pace, because the workload seemed a little high for her, and I was hoping she would get used to the routine and get faster with her work as time went on. But CW just keeps piling on the assignments! They keep adding to the routine without ever taking anything away.

 

Earlier this week, I opened up the book (we were in week 7, day 2), and I immediately felt overwhelmed. She was supposed to do dictation, and learning to use the thesaurus, and vocabulary analysis, and word copia~synonyms. She could easily spend an hour and half to two hours on all this! I decided to skip the vocab and thesaurus work, because she already knows how to use a thesaurus and didn't find any unfamiliar vocabulary in the model.

 

It might have gone okay, but then dd2 started dancing on the table, and ds6 walked in to blurt out random comments, and then ds8 walked in to torment ds6. In the middle of all this dd10 stopped cooperating and just stared sullenly at the table...and I had a meltdown. :blushing:

 

After I put myself in timeout, I realized that CW is cauing me too much stress. Are they making the whole writing process unnecessarily complicated?? For now I'm stepping back and doing some CM-style narration, copywork, and dictation with dd.

 

For those of you who have used CW Homer, does it get better at some point? Should I pick it back up in a few weeks (or months)? Or is it always going to be overwhelming and complicated? Can I do anything to make the lessons go more smoothly?

[Snickerdoodle]

It is a lot of work. My 10 yo finished all parts of week 15 today. Currently, it is taking 2 weeks to get through a level and I am making him do all parts of it. I only ask him to do 1 revision of his writing project.

 

That said, it does take him about an hour everyday to complete the assignment.

 

:grouphug:

[Hunter]

I love Aesop. I never even finished reading the TM for Homer.

[1Togo]

I agree with Snickerdoodle that it is realistic to expect an hour for Homer assignments. We worked through the Aesop/Homer-in-a-Month tutorial, and the assignments took at least an hour even with an older student. You might consider dividing the daily work into two days and keep the time to about 45 minutes. Fwiw, we have moved on to CW Maxim and have begun writing in other subjects, and we are using all the skills learned in Homer. The copia and paraphrase work is paying off, and Maxim is easy to use.

Edited March 31, 2012 by 1Togo

[SilverMoon]

For those of you who have used CW Homer, does it get better at some point? Should I pick it back up in a few weeks (or months)? Or is it always going to be overwhelming and complicated? Can I do anything to make the lessons go more smoothly?

 

We ended up dropping the workbooks. If you use the core as your guide the routines don't pile as badly as they do in the workbook. We *loved* the workbooks at first, but when it got deep after a move, sharing a house with rellies, /endlongstory I had to just set it aside for awhile. When life calmed down I picked up the core and started reading. I made notes in the margins and highlighted as I went. It made me remember why we loved CW so much in the first place. Before we started it again I copied off the blank form in the back of the book and read through each A&I Day to determine where I thought each kid was. That form lets you record which skill level and/or lesson they are working on in each Day.

 

My core now has post-it like flags marking it up. I keep them where the kid is at in the writing projects and in each A&I Day so I can find them easily. There's also one marking the rubric at the back.

 

Now the only time I open the workbook is so I can see how they did new skill levels when I'm writing out my own plans. CW is simple again.

[TKDmom]

It might help if you don't try to complete all of the work for one day in one time period. Work on the exercises for 45 minutes and stop. Pick it back up the next day. Working on a writing project and working on Day 1 - 4 work can easily take over an hour, so you might want to spend a week working on Analysis and Imitation exercises, and then work on a writing project the next week.

 

We had been splitting it up with analysis and imitation one week, then writing the next week. The timer is a good idea. I've tried that in math with some success. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that I could let dd use a timer for writing too.

 

Eta: I see you revised your post while I was quoting you. Thanks for the encouragement. I need to know that some good will come out of all this work, if we stick to it. :)

Edited March 31, 2012 by bonniebeth4

[1Togo]

Yes, setting a fixed time has often helped in our home with difficult subjects. We use a planner, but for those subjects, we write in what we accomplished in the allotted time rather than scheduling in advance. Your daughter is young, and Homer teaches many, many skills. I would take the time you need to master those skills. We didn't even get to the upper-level skills on our first pass through Homer and will be going back and slowly working through them.

[TKDmom]

We ended up dropping the workbooks. If you use the core as your guide the routines don't pile as badly as they do in the workbook. We *loved* the workbooks at first, but when it got deep after a move, sharing a house with rellies, /endlongstory I had to just set it aside for awhile. When life calmed down I picked up the core and started reading. I made notes in the margins and highlighted as I went. It made me remember why we loved CW so much in the first place. Before we started it again I copied off the blank form in the back of the book and read through each A&I Day to determine where I thought each kid was. That form lets you record which skill level and/or lesson they are working on in each Day.

 

My core now has post-it like flags marking it up. I keep them where the kid is at in the writing projects and in each A&I Day so I can find them easily. There's also one marking the rubric at the back.

 

Now the only time I open the workbook is so I can see how they did new skill levels when I'm writing out my own plans. CW is simple again.

 

Maybe I will spend the next few weeks re-reading the core book. It would be nice to use our own selections. Dd has disliked nearly all the selections so far--it's been almost all Aesop's fables and New Testament parables. I'm thoroughly sick of Aesop's fables at this point, and the parables are too bare-bones in their descriptions to make for interesting literary analysis

[1Togo]

We used some of the models suggested in the Homer core lessons for practice; i.e. Match Girl, etc. and I downloaded them from Baldwin Project. They were easy to teach because the core book had the sample. Also, I see you are reading Pinnochio. Use a few pages from that.

Edited March 31, 2012 by 1Togo

[Snickerdoodle]

I agree that using a model of your own choosing might just be the ticket.

[momto2blessings]

I love the goals of CW and spent SO much time learning how to use Homer (we'd used Writing Tales prior). But it was causing too much stress in our homeschool...dd and I hated writing. We switched to Write with the Best for now and are much happier....I couldn't believe how much CW weighed down our day. And admittedly not all the program's fault....dd and my attitudes about just not wanting to do it surely contributed:) I admire all who stick with it. It was just too much for us. Dd enjoyed her first writing assignment with Write with the Best, and I love the use of classic lit. w/step-by-step easy-to-follow instructions...it's pick up and go. Just what works for us:) Blessings, Gina

[whitestavern]

We bailed:tongue_smilie: But we were also using Write with the Best so it was definitely overload. Having completely switched from both of those, to WWS, I'm happy to report that dd has been using some of the skills that she learned in Homer in her assignments from WWS. I think we will definitely go back to using Homer at some point, but we will modify it somehow to make it work better for us.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

DD started working through CW Homer a few months ago. We've been going at half pace, because the workload seemed a little high for her, and I was hoping she would get used to the routine and get faster with her work as time went on. But CW just keeps piling on the assignments! They keep adding to the routine without ever taking anything away.

 

Earlier this week, I opened up the book (we were in week 7, day 2), and I immediately felt overwhelmed. She was supposed to do dictation, and learning to use the thesaurus, and vocabulary analysis, and word copia~synonyms. She could easily spend an hour and half to two hours on all this! I decided to skip the vocab and thesaurus work, because she already knows how to use a thesaurus and didn't find any unfamiliar vocabulary in the model.

 

It might have gone okay, but then dd2 started dancing on the table, and ds6 walked in to blurt out random comments, and then ds8 walked in to torment ds6. In the middle of all this dd10 stopped cooperating and just stared sullenly at the table...and I had a meltdown. :blushing:

 

I think maybe the workbook is making the lesson seem harder than it needs to be. We use just the core so I can't really comment on what the workbook assigns. Using the core that lesson would have look something like this for us.

 

1. Dictation - DD writes 1 sentence from the model on a dry erase board.

2. Vocabulary - I ask if there are any words she doesn't know. If so, she tries to figure out the meaning based on the context. When that's not possible, we look it up in the dictionary. Then I pick 3-5 words depending on the sentence (and the amount of time we have). She underlines the words and writes the part of speech over them.

3. Copia - For each underlined word we try to come up with at least 3 synonyms using a thesaurus only if needed. She writes the choices on the board below the model. Using the list we create, she reads the sentence back to me twice substituting the words from the list into the original model as she goes.

 

Then she's done. That would probably have taken us 20 minutes at the most. We were doing one lesson a week, so my DD would have then spent another 20 minutes or so working on her rough draft.

 

Can I do anything to make the lessons go more smoothly?

 

1. I would certainly feel free to substitute for any models that you dislike. 2. Don't feel like you have to fill in every blank in the workbook. If she's mastered that part of the skill, then mark it out and move on.

3. Do some of it orally instead.

4. Rather than let the workbook steer the lesson, my suggestion would be to look at the example in the core guide for the lesson and use that as a guide.

 

Also assign one of the boys to entertain DD while you're working and have a consequence for unnecessary interruptions.:D That's the only way we get teacher intensive subjects done here. ;)HTH

[TKDmom]

I think maybe the workbook is making the lesson seem harder than it needs to be. We use just the core so I can't really comment on what the workbook assigns. Using the core that lesson would have look something like this for us.

 

1. Dictation - DD writes 1 sentence from the model on a dry erase board.

2. Vocabulary - I ask if there are any words she doesn't know. If so, she tries to figure out the meaning based on the context. When that's not possible, we look it up in the dictionary. Then I pick 3-5 words depending on the sentence (and the amount of time we have). She underlines the words and writes the part of speech over them.

3. Copia - For each underlined word we try to come up with at least 3 synonyms using a thesaurus only if needed. She writes the choices on the board below the model. Using the list we create, she reads the sentence back to me twice substituting the words from the list into the original model as she goes.

 

Then she's done. That would probably have taken us 20 minutes at the most. We were doing one lesson a week, so my DD would have then spent another 20 minutes or so working on her rough draft.

 

 

 

1. I would certainly feel free to substitute for any models that you dislike. 2. Don't feel like you have to fill in every blank in the workbook. If she's mastered that part of the skill, then mark it out and move on.

3. Do some of it orally instead.

4. Rather than let the workbook steer the lesson, my suggestion would be to look at the example in the core guide for the lesson and use that as a guide.

 

Also assign one of the boys to entertain DD while you're working and have a consequence for unnecessary interruptions.:D That's the only way we get teacher intensive subjects done here. ;)HTH

 

Thanks! That does sound less complicated than the workbook makes it out to be. I'm really terrible at tweaking curricula, so it's good to see how other people do it and get "permission" to change things.

 

Maybe I need to be handing ds a timer too, so he knows how long he needs to keep dd2 out of my hair. :)

Edited April 1, 2012 by bonniebeth4