Classical Writing Aesop and MCT Island?

[Elfknitter.#]

Anyone using both of these? I'm looking to adding in CW Aesop B for my rising 4th grader. I'm curious if the grammar in MCT is sufficient for CW. I'm not planning on using Harvey's.

[Elfknitter.#]

Wow, not even a view yet?

 

I was searching and found this older thread for anyone else who might be interested: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/365645-3rd-grade-la-mct-cw/

[SilverMoon]

I'm sure it would be fine, but I have no experience with MCT. You don't really even need a separate grammar for the Aesop books; they teach all the grammar needed. Starting at the Homer level you need to make sure you're in a strong grammar book.

[serendipitous journey]

I just came across this. We have MCT Island level and Aesop A just arrived. While Aesop does teach all the grammar you need, I much prefer MCT's definitions and teaching method and am glad I have the MCT materials.

 

MCT on nouns: nouns are words that name things.

Aesop: a noun is a the name of a person, place, thing or idea.

 

Aesop is more traditional, MCT comes closer to a linguist's informal, working definition IMHO and has a nice cadence to boot. At any rate, I can't imagine that you'd need another grammar but don't yet know if we'll need something to supplement MCT & KISS if & when we get to the Homer level.

[LMD]

Just saw this now!

 

We're using MCT's Island level and Aesop A this year. I'm not planning on adding any further grammar - because I view MCT as the 'grammar' part of LA and Aesop as the 'writing' part.

[Elfknitter.#]

Just saw this now!

 

We're using MCT's Island level and Aesop A this year. I'm not planning on adding any further grammar - because I view MCT as the 'grammar' part of LA and Aesop as the 'writing' part.

 

Interesting. That's how I'm looking at it, too. We're working on Aesop B and are about 1/2 way through Sentence Island. It seems to compliment well with just a a topic or two we had to review in light of how CW works.

 

Fwiw, I wasn't planning on adding additional grammar to both. I just noticed CW uses Harvey's as you move into Homer and I'd rather stick with MCT. For now there seems no reason we can't.

[lwiesman]

My plans were to start CW Aesop B next year with my 4th grader and also use MCT grammartown. Has Aesop been easy to implement? I was deciding between that and Writing Tales. We have not done any writing this year at all. We did WWE 3 and FLL 3. I was thinking that Writing Tales may be easier for our first writing curr. Any thoughts on that?

[Elfknitter.#]

I also like the looks of Writing Tales (not to mention its more secular curriculum) but I got lucky finding a like new, complete set of Aesop. I'm planning to use it with two students, maybe three if I also use it in 7 or so years with my now toddler. :lol. I do not have any experience with WT, so maybe someone else will comment.

 

So far, it hasn't been too difficult to implement Aesop. What worked for me was to read the first two chapters of Aesop, skim the rest, look at the student workbook and instructor's guide, *then* refer to chapters 3 and 4 in Aesop for clarity. What I didn't realize is that Aesop is set up in the same manner as Complete Writer. The student workbook and IG are not necessary. Aesop is meant to teach you how to create your own lesson plans. Like Complete Writer and WWE, if you'd rather not find your own models to create your own lessons, you can purchase predesigned lesson plans to use (ie, the Student Workbooks A&B along with the IGs.) If you only buy the Aesop Guide, Classical Writing also offers Traditional Tales, which is a collection of models that can be used for lessons so you don't have to find your own. I assume some of these models may have religious content as Student Workbook B has 3 lessons based on bible verses. I mention the lack of need of the student workbook and IG because I hadn't read of it in any of the few reviews I found.