What Comes After FLL4?!

[carriewillard]

My two middle kids are finishing up First Language Lessons Level 4... and I don't know what's next for them, grammar-wise.

 

What can you all recommend? I need something I can teach them together. (They're 10 and 12.)

 

Thanks... trying to get everything purchased before next year :-)

 

Carrie

[dewdropfairy]

My plan is to do Junior AG.

[lifesadream83]

following as I am interested as well

[redsquirrel]

It depends on what you want. We tried Growing With Grammar, and it wasn't for us. 5th grade was sort of a lost year grammarwise, lol. But, then we moved to Rod and Staff in 6th grade (jumped in at 'grade level') and it was a good fit.

 

We are not Christian and it was a difficult decision to use R&S, but we have adapted it to our needs. There is just. so. much. in those books that it is easy to pick and choose what works for us. We do most of it orally.

[Blessed Mommy]

Rod and Staff 5, as recommended in TWTM!

[Angiegal]

I am interested in these reponses also!

 

[kaymom]

We used R&S this year for 4th and I bought it for next year too. It covers all 8 parts of speech in 5 th and 7 in 4th (it only leaves out interjections). It is very thorough and has lots of review. We are Christians and I sometimes get lost in their KJV old English for diagramming. But there are enough regular sentences and the KJV English isn't present in every lesson. We actually chuckle over some of their sentences because we used to live near Amish country (this is a Mennonite curriculum) so the farming references are abundant as are formal manners. Overall this is a strong curriculum and is what SWB recommends.

[Aloha2U]

We're almost done with FLL 4. We're going to skip R&S 5 and jump straight into R&S 6 in the fall.

[Rasa]

After finishing FLL4, we started Hake 5. It was a seamless transition.

[Murrayshire]

I second Jr. Analytical Grammar......for your 10 year old. For your 12 year old, I would probably go right into AG with DVD's (so there is some independence from you)...then your youngest could follow in those steps. This is our plan!

[carriewillard]

Thanks SO much. Looking into all of these sources (except Rod & Staff, my kids would laugh too much!).

[carriewillard]

Ok just one more question. FLL4 was pretty easy for these two. I chose it because they had not done a lot of formal grammar work, but they breezed through it fast.

 

I'm thinking Hake level 6 would be next, as 5 might be too easy. Ditto for AG - level 6. Thoughts? I looked at some samples online but I could be wrong.

 

Also, looking at MCT... but it looks like a complete language arts curriculum. I'm happy with Writing With Ease for writing... so that would be overkill, right?

 

Carrie

[Stef03]

Also, looking at MCT... but it looks like a complete language arts curriculum. I'm happy with Writing With Ease for writing... so that would be overkill, right?

 

Actually a lot of ppl here supplement MCT with WWE. That's what we plan on doing next year :)

[TarynB]

Ok just one more question. FLL4 was pretty easy for these two. I chose it because they had not done a lot of formal grammar work, but they breezed through it fast.

 

I'm thinking Hake level 6 would be next, as 5 might be too easy. Ditto for AG - level 6. Thoughts? I looked at some samples online but I could be wrong.

 

As for Hake, before deciding what level to jump into, have you thought about how many years you want your DC to study grammar or what middle school will look like for them? The reason I ask is because of the following quotes, these are thoughts I posted on another recent thread about our experience with Hake. Hake 5 & 6 are almost identical in terms of the concepts covered - perhaps just a slight increase in reading level - as are Hake 7 & 8.

 

FWIW, Hake 5 & 6 and then also 7 & 8 are very similar to each other. Our plan is to use Hake 5 spread over 2 years (started in 5th grade), then use Hake 8 spread over two years (starting in 7th grade), and then hopefully we'll be done with formal grammar instruction. (Looking back, if I had realized I would follow this plan, I would have used Hake 6 instead of 5 - those 2 levels teach different concepts in only 8 lessons out of 120+ lessons. I can't recall exactly, but levels 7 & 8 are that similar as well.)

and

Just personal preference to spread it over 2 years. Once I realized how similar the 5/6 & 7/8 levels are to each other, and considering the high amount of review built-in, it made sense for my DS. This way I'll spend money on only 2 levels instead of 4 and get essentially the same concepts covered. Not much new is introduced between 5/6 and 7/8, although the complexity of the material is slightly higher in 6 & 8 vs. 5 & 7. My DS is strong in LA and just seems to "get" grammar concepts easily.

 

There are around 110 - 120 lessons, and that's definitely doable in a year if you school 180 days and do 3 lessons per week. DS does one lesson per day on the days we do grammar and it takes him about 15 to 20 minutes per lesson. He does every other review problem (only odds, or only evens) in every lesson, BTW, and that's plenty of review for him.

[carriewillard]

 

As for Hake, before deciding what level to jump into, have you thought about how many years you want your DC to study grammar or what middle school will look like for them?

 

No, I don't... and as I dig around I see what you mean. I don't want them to have to do the same things each year, grammar wise. So should I wait until 8th grade and just skip grammar until then?

 

Carrie

[carriewillard]

Thanks for the link to that other thread! I'm so new here, and new to so many of these curricula, that I don't even know what to search for half the time. ;)

 

So. I'm thinking that I'll go with Hake 7/8 because ds12 and dd10 are quite good at grammar. I'll go slowly to spread it out over 2 years, and since it's not teacher intensive it's a definite win. (And it looks like I can snag it on eBay pretty cheap.)

 

Thanks everyone....

Carrie

[TarynB]

No, I don't... and as I dig around I see what you mean. I don't want them to have to do the same things each year, grammar wise. So should I wait until 8th grade and just skip grammar until then?

 

Carrie

 

 

I'm not sure I would be comfortable doing that with my DS (I'm too much of a conventional box-checker, LOL), but you know your DC better than anyone. We're going to do Hake 5 over two years (5th & 6th grade - and as I said earlier, if I had looked ahead better, I would have done this with Hake 6 instead), then skip to Hake 8 and do that one level spread over 7th and 8th grade. Then hopefully we won't need any further grammar instruction or review for DS.

[carriewillard]

Oh so it might be best if I do Hake 6 and then Hake 8? Trying to make sense of all this. So it would be two years of Hake 6 and then two years of 8 - they would be done with grammar in 4 years. Does that seem like a better plan?

[TarynB]

Oh so it might be best if I do Hake 6 and then Hake 8? Trying to make sense of all this. So it would be two years of Hake 6 and then two years of 8 - they would be done with grammar in 4 years. Does that seem like a better plan?

That's pretty much the plan for my DS (except we're using Hake 5 instead of 6 just because we already own it, but those two levels are EXTREMELY similar). Hake Grammar is so complete & self-contained with a *lot* of spiral review (we usually do only the odds or only the evens in the review sections), that the above plan makes sense for us. It still covers all the concepts, keeps everything fresh with lots of review, and (bonus) saves me money by buying only 2 levels instead of 4. Of course, if you get your hands on Hake and start your DC using it, you might see that a different plan makes sense for you. HTH!

[carriewillard]

and (bonus) saves me money by buying only 2 levels instead of 4.

 

 

Yeah! It's a plan then. And I'll be all set for the younger sibs too. I've heard it's easy to use a separate notebook for these so they don't write in workbooks, correct?

 

Relieved.

 

Carrie

[TarynB]

Yeah! It's a plan then. And I'll be all set for the younger sibs too. I've heard it's easy to use a separate notebook for these so they don't write in workbooks, correct?

 

 

You certainly could use a separate notebook, of course. I only have one kid, and he's averse to any unnecessary physical handwriting, so I let him write in the book. The pages are thin newsprint, so hopefully if you plan to pass them down, your older DC will be gentle on them. :)

[TarynB]

Also, just to be sure you're aware, each level of Hake has three components/books. The grammar lessons (written to the student) are completely self-contained in the student textbook. There is a teacher manual that contains the grammar lesson solutions, as well as blank tests and the test answers. Finally, there is a third book called a workbook that contains the entirety of the writing lessons portion of the program, as well as about 20 - 30 lessons worth of extra practice pages for specific grammar lessons. I bought the workbook but have never used it. We use other programs for writing, and the (grammar) textbook contains all the practice I think we'll ever need.