Religious Content in LLATL?

[Ecclecticmum]

I *know* from reading a previous post from Audrey? I think it was, that there is religious content in LLATL.

 

Can someone who has been through the levels (please name which levels you have used) explain the religious "content" in it?

 

 

 

History/Reason: I was looking around for certain skills I wanted met (teeny skills, like research & creative expression, how to use an encyclopedia/dictionary properly, and little bits & pieces like that. I know its in AAS (well as far as someone said) but we stopped using aas (apart from the tiles) so I was looking for an alternative. Other than really boring workbooks, I found LLATL, and it looked interesting enough, but I got confused whether I just needed the TM for what I wanted, or needed the workbook as well, since I had all but 3 of the lit books listed, I decided on what the heck, and purchase the full LLATL blue set + the 3 lit books I needed to complete it. I thought either I will use parts of it as I originally wanted to, or will end up using the full she-bang of it, and who knows, it might faze out the need to purchase the next dancing bears level. Then I saw Audrey's post whilst searching around for info on starting/using it (so I know what to do before it arrives), and got rather worried. We have a mixed religious family, so I prefer fully secular, or items I know I can secularize or tweak to my own easily.

 

Can anyone tell me how the religious content is structured? Is it just full of the writer saying how blessed she feels to be able to write the book, or is their religion actually in the lessons? And is the religion weaved through it, making it hard to secularize without losing parts of the program?

 

Thank you so much!

[Susie in MS]

 

 

Can anyone tell me how the religious content is structured? Is it just full of the writer saying how blessed she feels to be able to write the book, or is their religion actually in the lessons? And is the religion weaved through it, making it hard to secularize without losing parts of the program?

 

Thank you so much!

 

No, you won't find it oozing from the fibers. ;)

The religious content is so little that I have a hard time remembering it. I have used parts of blue, all of red, and on week 4 of yellow. With my older kids we used all of Tan through Gold. That being said I remember one lesson in one of the older levels that had to do with scripture research. In the red level I remember one of the first lessons having to do with David and Goliath. You will find no doctrinal issues that I can think of. If you find any lesson leaning in a way you don't want it would not hurt to skip it. Really, it is not all over the place (which wouldn't bother me). Now I have never seen the purple or orange to even know anything about those levels.

 

HTH

[Ecclecticmum]

Thanks, I know one lesson capitalizes god, I would not have a problem with this, as its based on perspectives, and from the perspective of my 7yo, he is a "person" and that is his "name", and would be different from talking about a god or gods in general (which I would explain). Same as Allah, or Isis, these are different gods, and those are their names. Lord or The Almighty would be the same, him is not (to me).

 

And I know there is another area of purple level, I think, that does scripture research, again, that is fine, as its historical, and also a religious book based on another beliefs, if it used the Torah or an ancient scroll, I would feel the same.

 

And (it may actually be part of purple and scripture research) one level uses Adam and his Kin for lit, but the book believes (I think, from what I read) that you would believe in Creationism, but can be used for young or old earth..I'm unsure about Adam & his Kin, but presuming its just about Adam & Eve and that sort of time, I would be fine with using that too.

 

So I was hoping that was most of it, and that I wouldn't suddenly come across a surprise that can't be used by us or secularized without re-making the lesson.

 

Another hope is that eventually I can re-write llatl to fit in with our current unit studies, rather than having a seperate llatl unit study going on, but we'll see how we go.

 

David and Goliath might be a bit of a problem, I'll have to see how its presented.

 

Thank you for your reply.

[Joshin]

I have all the levels sitting right here in my pile to send to consignment. I picked them up at the thrift store and thought I'd look through them to see if they would work. The first several levels aren't too bad, but the religious content slowly gets more in your face as you progress through the series. My older son tried to use tan this year because he thought it looked easy, but there were way too many biblical references and he didn't feel comfortable with it. I can't remember them off hand, but there are some sections where it's really heavy, and the correct answers or just the verbiage assumes you are coming at it from a Christian perspective. If I had the time to screen ahead and come up with alternate work, we could have probably made it work, but it just wasn't worth it to me because LLATL is just such a light program as it is. I'm also not a fan of many of the literature selections throughout the series. They seem young for the grade level or they are overly heavy-handed in the religion department for our taste.

 

For the skills you are trying to teach, I recommend Wordsmith Apprentice. It also has some Christian content but it's very light and easily omitted or approached from a different perspective. In the text, the student is a new reporter and learning all the skills of a reporter. It specifically teaches research and dictionary skills, writing technique, creative writing, and other necessary writing and comprehension skills. DS used it last year and absolutely loved it. He's not big on writing, but he would willingly spend all day turning a simple exercise from the book into a full blown project.

[Susie in MS]

You are right. I forgot about Adam and His Kin being used. Star of Light is also Christian. Both are in the Green level (7th grade).

I must be confused. I thought you were mainly wanting to know about the blue level (k-1st) and red (2nd). Sorry.

[Ecclecticmum]

You are right. I forgot about Adam and His Kin being used. Star of Light is also Christian. Both are in the Green level (7th grade).

I must be confused. I thought you were mainly wanting to know about the blue level (k-1st) and red (2nd). Sorry.

 

That's ok! Your first answer definitely helped. I was wanting to know both the level I was starting on (Blue) and future levels from here on out.

 

Other poster - I thought Wordsmith Apprentice was from 3rd Grade? That might be an option to change over to that later on.

 

I loved the idea of LLATL, and yes, may get time to re-write it for our studies, I was just wanting to see how it progressed through the years (hence asking for what levels each person used).

 

I try to teach using Right Brain learning, Experiential, and Discovery Learning, so its hard to find items that fit that genre, let alone items that are secular and meant for homeschooling, and not classrooms.

 

LLATL was really a spur of the moment decision (we had a gift of some money from family which allowed us to purchase a new-to-us car and some money left over for little hs bits & pieces. If I didn't have the money, I wouldn't of purchased it, lol. As I said, I was mostly wanting it (originally) as a springboard for research idea & skill, creative expression and that sort of thing. I didn't mind that the grammar & spelling were light, nor anything about the lit. We are planning to use Katherine Stouts guides, and Cozy Grammar later on as well as Items from Critical thinking and other places on editing, and Brave Writer for writing/composition. I would be adding in bits and pieces of those items as needed throughout the years, but wanted something that concentrates on the little bits.

 

Here is the stuff I am interested in that LLATL has:

 

 

Research and Study Skills

Higher Order Thinking Skills

Creative Expression / Games

And also some of the Composition assignments from red book up seem interesting.

 

So its really the little extras, but since its so intertwined with phonics, I think the grammar would be good too, as its working those bits in at a level obviously on par with her reading. So in the end I just decided the whole program was quite nice if it worked, but I may jump ship at Yellow, or may continue purchasing just for the extras. I mean, if I like the extras, and my children do, it would be worth it. Its not like our other curricula is expensive here on out. The only things I have to purchase now is supplies and next TM & Student book of math, and next phonics level of Dancing Bears (if LLATL doesn't allow Atlas to springboard on it, by itself).

 

I don't know how to create my own stuff for this area, and the research/study skills of using sources properly is very important to me, so is using hands-on, fun learning.

[chiguirre]

Blue and Red didn't have much religious content and whatever was there was general cultural stuff as far as I recall. Yellow starts off with a copywork passage about the Bible that assumes the user is Christian and feels really squicky if you're not.

[Joshin]

 

Other poster - I thought Wordsmith Apprentice was from 3rd Grade? That might be an option to change over to that later on.

 

 

You're right! Third to fifth grade for Apprentice. I saw the reference to LLATL purple and completely forgot about the blue reference in the original post.

[Violet Crown]

I'm surprised to hear people saying there isn't much religious content in LLATL. I have the old 1994 set, and maybe there has been a substantial reduction of the religious content?

 

In the Red Book, 16 out of the 45 lessons are based on explicitly religious passages. In the Yellow Book, 18 out of 45. The activities for these passages frequently presume your family is Christian. I prefer secular curricula, but I like LLATL, so I let it go.

 

OTOH, the religiosity of the Gold Book made it just unusable (actually it was bad for multiple reasons - very disappointing after how good the earlier books were).

 

 

[Shahrazad]

I was looking at these and had no idea there was religious content. This thread has definitely been eye-opening.

 

Same as Allah, or Isis, these are different gods, and those are their names. Lord or The Almighty would be the same, him is not (to me).

 

 

OT, I know, but just a small correction. Allah is not a different deity in the way that Isis is a completely separate being from the God of the Christians. The God worshipped by all 3 Abrahamic faiths is the same, Allah would be equivalent to the 'father' in the Christrian triune. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God (literally, it means Al-Ilah, Al= The, Ilah = God). You probably already know this but just in case you didn't (as I know some people think Allah is something different), I wanted to let you know that we don't see it as a separate entity :).

[Ecclecticmum]

I was looking at these and had no idea there was religious content. This thread has definitely been eye-opening.

 

 

 

OT, I know, but just a small correction. Allah is not a different deity in the way that Isis is a completely separate being from the God of the Christians. The God worshipped by all 3 Abrahamic faiths is the same, Allah would be equivalent to the 'father' in the Christrian triune. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God (literally, it means Al-Ilah, Al= The, Ilah = God). You probably already know this but just in case you didn't (as I know some people think Allah is something different), I wanted to let you know that we don't see it as a separate entity :).

 

Yep, already knew that ;) Just had a sad panda baby next to me most of the day (both of us have colds) and I went brain-dead and couldn't think of examples lol. I was basically saying stuff counted as a name is fine, but if they said capitalise "Him" then that would not be okay for us. DD capitalises Mother Nature as well ;)

 

Must go calm down said baby again. *sigh* apparently her feet are too small (I love sick children, everything is a reason to cry).

[Susie in MS]

I'm surprised to hear people saying there isn't much religious content in LLATL. I have the old 1994 set, and maybe there has been a substantial reduction of the religious content?

 

In the Red Book, 16 out of the 45 lessons are based on explicitly religious passages. In the Yellow Book, 18 out of 45. The activities for these passages frequently presume your family is Christian. I prefer secular curricula, but I like LLATL, so I let it go.

 

OTOH, the religiosity of the Gold Book made it just unusable (actually it was bad for multiple reasons - very disappointing after how good the earlier books were).

 

 

I think it may have changed. I have the 1998 Yellow and just thumbed through it. Now it was not a thorough go-thru so I may have missed some, but I counted 8 passages with Christian content. There are not 45 lit passages in my copy. In fact there are not even 1 for every week. On the book study weeks I see no passages. So maybe 30-32 passages all together. I have not looked at the dictation passages to see what they are like.

 

But I must add, because I am a conservative Christian what may jump out at someone else may slip by me as normal everyday stuff. I hope I have not been misleading.

[Shahrazad]

 

Yep, already knew that ;) Just had a sad panda baby next to me most of the day (both of us have colds) and I went brain-dead and couldn't think of examples lol. I was basically saying stuff counted as a name is fine, but if they said capitalise "Him" then that would not be okay for us. DD capitalises Mother Nature as well ;)

 

Must go calm down said baby again. *sigh* apparently her feet are too small (I love sick children, everything is a reason to cry).

 

 

I figured this was the case :).