scheduling Galore Park's Junior English

[serendipitous journey]

Any advice for this? I've had a copy, but we haven't started it because it is not obvious to me how to break it up. Do y'all chunk it out as you go, estimating what is a reasonable amount of work; or assign a section at a time? Spread over a year, just do it every day or every other day?

 

I know these are personal choices, but it would be great to hear what patterns anybody has for using this. Button is a little writing-averse, and not really fluent in his handwriting yet -- writing things takes rather a bit of effort -- and is in the middle of his second grade year.

 

thanks in advance!

[Laura Corin]

I looked at it as a year's work. I went through and counted up the exercises, then divided that number by the number of weeks that we were planning on working (40 in our case). The only thing that's a bit variable is the 'writing' section and the 'speaking' section. With Hobbes, I did most of the writing prompts and only one or two of the speaking ideas: the latter was the area where more were unworkable because they were designed for a classroom situation. I spread the writing prompts through the chapter's work, so the writing wasn't all in one block.

 

I wasn't too obsessive though: some weeks the exercises seemed quite quick and we did a bit more; some weeks it went a bit slower. Some years I finished a bit early and did other activities or started the next book; some years the work ran over.

 

I hope that helps

 

ETA: one thing that I did with Calvin, who had difficulties with writing, was to do a lot of work orally, so that he was learning how to construct fluent English without being constrained by writing. So if he was going to write a story, he would handwrite notes (names of characters, beginning, middle and end ideas, etc.) then dictate the story to me. I would type it, then he would edit it on the screen. Slowly, over time, he would do more of the handwriting (moving on to writing short paragraphs, then finally complete pieces).

 

Laura

[StephanieF]

I allow 3 weeks per chapter. I do a comprehension and some of the grammar exercises a week and then the writing exercises in the week without the comprehension. Sometimes we do the grammar orally, sometimes ds writes it out.

Stephanie

[Melissa B]

We homeschool 40 weeks and spend four weeks per chapter.

[acablue]

We're also using MCT, so I've just been pulling Junior English out 1-2 times per week to change things up. We've been doing a lot orally, but spending a fair bit of time on the writing section. I find it a bit easier to jump around within each chapter, doing one writing or speaking assignment and one other exercise in a sitting.

[serendipitous journey]

Thank you so much, everyone! It wouldn't have occurred to me to spread writing/speaking and the other exercises across the chapter, and that sounds an excellent idea. Plus now I have several strategies for scheduling ... am much encouraged.