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How sophisticated are the sentences in Practice Island? My ds has had a fair amount of grammar and diagramming with other programs such as some FLL and some Abeka and Classical Conversations Essentials for one year. I am thinking of buying Voyage and Magic Lens Level 1 Grammar books as a result but I am interested in the lower level practice books especially if they are great sentences. I would still buy Voyage Level Practice as well as Magic Lens Level 1 Practice books.

 

Also, I am possibly interested in Music of the Hemispheres but only if the material in it is not covered in Building Poems.

 

I am also buying CE I to start. As for writing, I am thinking of Paragraph Town but we also use WWE and hope to use WWS. We have also used IEW theme book with Classical Conversations last year as well as some other writing instruction books.

 

Any thoughts? Am I crazy???:D

Edited by priscilla
error in name of book
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I will be starting MCT Town this year (5th grader) but was looking at CC Essentials for the next year (6th). I have read that CC Essentials is about as complete as it comes and so since you already had a year of it I was wondering why you were looking elsewhere.

I am guessing that maybe due to cost you are not repeating it again this year (they say it can be done for 3 yrs, getting deeper each yr), BUT since you already have the tools, couldn't you just repeat it at home on a deeper level?

I am asking, not to challenge you, but to get some info on the "need" to do Essentials vs another program like MCT.

What are your thoughts?

Thx!

Stacey T.

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How sophisticated are the sentences in Practice Island? My ds has had a fair amount of grammar and diagramming with other programs such as some FLL and some Abeka and Classical Conversations Essentials for one year. I am thinking of buying Voyage and Magic Lens Level 1 Grammar books as a result but I am interested in the lower level practice books especially if they are great sentences. I would still buy Voyage Level Practice as well as Magic Lens Level 1 Practice books.

 

Also, I am possibly interested in Music of the Hemispheres but only if the material in it is not covered in Building Poems.

 

I am also buying CE I to start. As for writing, I am thinking of Paragraph Town but we also use WWE and hope to use WWS. We have also used IEW theme book with Classical Conversations last year as well as some other writing instruction books.

 

Any thoughts? Am I crazy???:D

 

We're only on the Town level, so take my comments with a grain of salt but . . . I think your plan to use WWE/WWS along with MCT is brilliant (since that is what we are doing too! ;)) IMO, at least at the Island and Town levels, the writing books are almost better *grammar* books than writing books. What I mean is, they explore how grammar relates to excellent and beautiful writing. I find this brilliant - it answer's the kid's question "why do I have to learn all this grammar stuff" from day 1: you learn it so you can write great sentences/paragraphs/essays. But I don't think it's enough practice with writing to be a stand-alone writing program. Maybe at the Voyage level, but not before.

 

Example: Paragraph Town has 20 lessons. The first 10 are a review of grammar concepts related to writing paragraphs, but not a lot of writing. The second are meaty writing assignments. But, 10 writing assignments is nowhere near enough, right? So, we are doing WWS alongside MCT, and on the weeks when PT's writing lessons are meaty, we'll go easy on WWS.

 

You are smart to start Vocab with CE - it's brilliant! Also I think you are wise to realize that you can mix and match the levels, no need to feel compelled to do everything at the same level together.

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I will be starting MCT Town this year (5th grader) but was looking at CC Essentials for the next year (6th). I have read that CC Essentials is about as complete as it comes and so since you already had a year of it I was wondering why you were looking elsewhere.

I am guessing that maybe due to cost you are not repeating it again this year (they say it can be done for 3 yrs, getting deeper each yr), BUT since you already have the tools, couldn't you just repeat it at home on a deeper level?

I am asking, not to challenge you, but to get some info on the "need" to do Essentials vs another program like MCT.

What are your thoughts?

Thx!

Stacey T.

 

Ds is attending a charter this year. Essentials is very thorough but IMO I think ds will find MCT more entertaining yet thorough:) I will still review the charts occasionally with ds from Essentials though. I also think that the sentences used in MCT are of a significantly higher literary value than those of Essentials which is important to me since I believe it will helps ds to develop more sophisticated writing. I am also enamored with KISS grammar and Killagon's grammar books and I think MCT complements them. Lastly, the sentences used in MCT seem to have a wonderfully rich vocabulary.

 

ETA: We would do possibly do CC again if ever homeschooled again. We did CC primarily to network in a new city and we did love that aspect of it and thought it was a good program. Now only if they used MCT and they would be great!!

Edited by priscilla
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I think the grammar ramps up quite a bit with Magic Lens. I too was looking into it because DS has done a lot of grammar. I decided to wait. So this year we will be doing Voyage.

 

DS is working through Practice Town. The sentences didn't ramp up in terms of complexity until around sentence number 50 (it's one sentence per page and I believe 100 sentences).

 

Pretty much the same material is covered in MOH as Building Poems but I believe slightly quicker. Either one would work. The poetry was HARD compared to the other books IMO. My son didn't like the poetry at all. So I'm not even going to do the poetry anymore at this point (we did MOH and BP).

 

CE 1 has been our favorite of all of it. We will start CE 2 soon.

 

Paragraph Town is a fun read and contains a lot of good information, but there isn't a ton of practice and I think it's a leap if your child hasn't done much beyond the WTM type writing. We are also using WWE 4 and will use WWS. I did buy Essay Voyage, but I'm going to hold off.

 

Ack....you are driving me crazy...you know that right? :lol: Just teasing you.

 

We do love MCT. It's just so hard to tell people where to start and what to use and how it will all work out for them.

 

And just to let you know, the grammar is quick. We did the grammar book in a month.

 

Thanks for the info:) I am also intrigued with the thoroughness and yet conciseness of MCT grammar as well which is another reason I am interested in it as well.

 

Now did you see his literary packs with definitions and comments on the page for the selected books??:svengo::001_wub:MCT!!!

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Thx! That really makes me feel good about doing MCT this year! Whew! :)

We are going down to one income in a few weeks and so I am not sure the $ would be there for Essentials. Ya just always feel like you are missing out on stuff, it seems. I have to get over the feeling that if we are involved in a CC Community that we have to do EVERYTHING. :chillpill:

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Thx! That really makes me feel good about doing MCT this year! Whew! :)

We are going down to one income in a few weeks and so I am not sure the $ would be there for Essentials. Ya just always feel like you are missing out on stuff, it seems. I have to get over the feeling that if we are involved in a CC Community that we have to do EVERYTHING. :chillpill:

 

Actually I think doing MCT prior to Essentials would have been great. OTOH, even though Essentials is a solid program IMO, MCT grammar program is great since to me it re-enforces vocabulary, grammar and great writing. Plus, it makes a great precursor to KISS grammar which is excellent and free!! I have come to the conclusion that great sentences are an important component of a good grammar program and Essentials sentences were not so great in comparison to MCT, KISS, and Killagon IMO.

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