New writing program from CAP...

[Halcyon]

Of course not!! We just started Fable.  What homeschooling police is watching to make sure you only start things in September or January?  ;)

 

I actually find spring a great time to start new things.  We're either finishing stuff up, or just incredibly bored with it.  Brings a new energy to add in something new!

 

 

Right, but I always feel guilty when we switch things up--we are only like on lesson 16 in WWE4 and I am a type-A who feels compelled to complete the curriculum....

 

Choices choices. 

[Chelli]

Right, but I always feel guilty when we switch things up--we are only like on lesson 16 in WWE4 and I am a type-A who feels compelled to complete the curriculum....

 

Choices choices.

You could do both. I know some people are doing that with WWE3.

 

And, yes, my middle name is enabler. ;)

[Alte Veste Academy]

The more I look at this, the more excited I am. I think we will start with Book 2. 

Would it be terrible to start right now???  :hat:

 

I am using this with my DSalmost8. In my opinion, it is a step back from WWE4 in terms of difficulty, but two giant steps forward in terms of enjoyment. ;)

[Katydid]

Terrible enablers, the lot of you. Thanks to this board, I just bought two levels of LLTL and now I've gone and bought the teacher's manual to both of these books. :svengo:

 

Truthfully I'm really excited, though. No other writing/grammar programs have spoken to me like these two. I'm thinking of using them together for my oldest, doing most of CAPW&R Fable orally/on the whiteboard (using a notebook for the longer assignments) and LLTL3 in the workbook. Does that seem reasonable, or do you think that would overwhelm my reluctant writer?

[Chelli]

Terrible enablers, the lot of you. Thanks to this board, I just bought two levels of LLTL and now I've gone and bought the teacher's manual to both of these books. :svengo:

 

Truthfully I'm really excited, though. No other writing/grammar programs have spoken to me like these two. I'm thinking of using them together for my oldest, doing most of CAPW&R Fable orally/on the whiteboard (using a notebook for the longer assignments) and LLTL3 in the workbook. Does that seem reasonable, or do you think that would overwhelm my reluctant writer?

 

I have added both of these programs to our homeschool this year as well. LLTL for my first grader and CAP for my 4th grader. They are both wonderful for our homeschool philosophy and have been fantastic additions. I haven't seen LLTL 3, but I've held off on using LLTL with my 4th grader for two reasons: 1) the level she would need hasn't been released and 2) I'm not sure how in-depth the writing instruction is and since we are using CAP, I don't want to be drowning in writing.

 

HTH.

[crazyforlatin]

I am using this with my DSalmost8. In my opinion, it is a step back from WWE4 in terms of difficulty, but two giant steps forward in terms of enjoyment. ;)

I love CAP but it's easier than Killgallon's Elementary imitation sentences or pure summarization from WWE. It's a program that can stimulate interest in a reluctant writer; there's a little bit of everything - multiple choices, word play, copy work, summary, amplification. Most importantly, it's doubtful a child will refuse to write if you give her CAP. I need DD to be a little more challenged, so we just started WWS, week 1.

[Katydid]

I have added both of these programs to our homeschool this year as well. LLTL for my first grader and CAP for my 4th grader. They are both wonderful for our homeschool philosophy and have been fantastic additions. I haven't seen LLTL 3, but I've held off on using LLTL with my 4th grader for two reasons: 1) the level she would need hasn't been released and 2) I'm not sure how in-depth the writing instruction is and since we are using CAP, I don't want to be drowning in writing.

 

HTH.

 

After looking through both LLTL3 and the CAP samples, I think they will compliment each other nicely. From what I can tell, LLTL3 focuses more on literature and grammar and CAP more on re-writes and original composition. They both cover narration, copywork, dictation, and grammar application and that is where we will pick and choose because I know it would be way too much for him to have to do all the writing in both of these programs. But there are things from both that I think are important to learn and everything is so nicely laid out in each of these programs that I think they will be fairly painless to implement. Plus, neither program has an overwhelming amount of lessons to get through.

 

Lots of people do WWE & FFL together and that is what I would compare these programs to. So far this year, we have been doing ILL, Sentence Family and writing across the curriculum (narrations/dictations/copywork) and it's been OK, but I feel like I'm floundering a bit without a more laid out plan. (SF has been the hit of the year so we will for sure finish that up, though). So we will see how things go when I get my books. :)

 

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I am in the opposite situation, I am considering a move to CC since that is what Kolbe uses and we will more than likely enroll with them for highschool.  Would love to hear your thoughts on CC and more info on why you want to make the switch  (We are almost done with Fable and have really enjoyed it!  Dd WWE 1-3 before this)

 

We also plan to use Kolbe for high school, so I had been strongly considering CC.  After looking at samples I just can't do it.  It just looks very boring.  I own W&R Fable and plan to begin the series next year.  The first level or two will be easy for dd since we have done 1.5 years of Fable-type work with other programs, so I expect to go quickly.  It looks like a perfect fit for me as a teacher and oldest dd as a student.

[Soror]

Personally, I think it would depend on the child but I find a fair amount of the writing work more challenging than WWE3. In WWE3 there is no independent writing (at least at the point we're at about 2/3 rds the way through). The selections are more challenging in WWE but the independent work expected with WR is much more, which is one of the reasons I think they mix so well together. WR gets them working towards written narrations with simpler works in very incremental and modeled steps, which is very helpful for my own ds. I like as well that the work with style is much explicit through the sentence play and modeling. We really enjoy those parts and I'm looking forward to using some Killgallon to take this work further and incorporate into our writing. They really challenge the student in different ways, which I think is so beneficial.

[Halcyon]

You could do both. I know some people are doing that with WWE3.

 

And, yes, my middle name is enabler. ;)

 

 

Oh, now THAT'S a good idea. I have no problem using more than one (or two or seven) curricula simultaneously.  :lol: Which accounts for my siggie.

[Soror]

Oh, now THAT'S a good idea. I have no problem using more than one (or two or seven) curricula simultaneously.  :lol: Which accounts for my siggie.

FWIW I'm using WWE3 and WR and it has been great :)

[ladydusk]

FWIW I'm using WWE3 and WR and it has been great :)

Me too.  Only we're all working on W&R together.  It's quite a stretch for my little one (I'm scribing for her a good bit), but the other two are doing pretty well so far - on Fridays and very slowly. 

 

I do think we're going to go to the WWE Strong Fundamentals book with our History, Science, and Literature readings (the hard part is coordinating that for three kids in three different places) and do W&R a bit more often.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I think WWE3 is pretty challenging, fwiw.  Shannon did it in 4th grade then segued - (I have no idea how to spell that word, lol) into WWS.  I will be perfectly happy if Morgan does Fable this year (in 2nd) then the Narrative books and part of WWE3 in 3rd, and WWE3 is perfectly welcome to spill into 4th along with the next CAP levels.   I'm waiting to see what the later CAP books provide before I decide on Morgan's moves after that.  I highly doubt that WWE4 will be in her future, however, and I'm optimistic that CAP will mean I'm not even tempted to try WWS with her, which I predict at this point would be a total disaster!  :laugh:

[NASDAQ]

She'll be 8 later next month, and I expect her to finish Aesop around January. I know of the CC series, but I have not looked at it seriously. I'll compare it to what we would do with CW Homer. I'm comfortable with the teacher end of Homer, using just the core to design our own path. The maturity required for the analysis is the only thing that makes me pause, but slowing it down too much would have her bored. Thanks for the suggestion. :)

 

We're in a similar situation. At this rate she will finish Aesop sometime next winter. About to turn eight.

 

I was thinking of doing the poetry section as a buffer.

[SilverMoon]

We're in a similar situation. At this rate she will finish Aesop sometime next winter. About to turn eight.

 

I was thinking of doing the poetry section as a buffer.

That could work. :)

 

The DD I mentioned is more than halfway through 3rd grade now. She seemed to know the skills in Aesop before we got to them. We dabbled in CAP's new series, but she'll outgrow it faster than they can write it. She's done so much poetry already.

 

Awhile ago I asked her to write a paragraph about an animal she had read about, and for the first time her paper stayed blank. "I don't even know how to start this!" I've started teaching her how to collect facts about something, arrange it sensibly, and make a paragraph or three about it. After this? Maybe we'll just move around to various types of writing, newspaper article, letters, and such. No idea what to do for 4th though.

[Chrysalis Academy]

We ran into our first glitch today . . . at the end of Lesson 3 in Fable, the fable they are to summarize is one where a hare gets ripped to pieces by dogs, then a pheasant gets eaten by a hawk.  Um, no thanks.  Morgan was having none of it - "You can't force me to write a summary of that story" were her exact words. 

 

She's right, I didn't try!  I skimmed ahead and I don't think any of the rest of them are like that, but, sensitive-animal-loving kid alert for the end of Lesson 3!

[Soror]

We are at the end of Lesson 10 in Book 2 now, ds is really enjoying dragging this one out. He thinks we need to submit the story and get it published, so he keeps on going and going and going with it. I've got to get him typing so I can stop scribing for him. This program has really brought out his creative side. We still have plenty of things to learn but I can see that he is really enjoying trying to figure out how to phrase things. He loves fantasy and sci fi stories so he is always trying to pull in those type of elements to his stories. I've got no problem getting him to work on writing with WR!

[Roadrunner]

I wish they would throw samples of the next level for us to look through.

[LolaT]

What is the release date for the next two books 3 & 4?

[Halcyon]

I heard april?

[Soror]

I think it is April for 3 and Aug for 4.

[Soror]

I mentioned above how ds is really enjoying this, yesterday and today I cut him off 1hr into writing time. Finally today we started typing it up to save time but he still has a lot he wants to add to the story. We've edited some as well, when we went through it I noticed there was a misplaced modifier so it was a great chance to reinforce that concept from our grammar studies. We've never worked this long on any project so I'm anxious to see how far he wants to take it. One thing I thought was fun was that he had the character meet a magician who posed a riddle. He loves riddles and jokes so it was neat to see him work that into the story. His sentence structure and mechanics are still very basic but I see at points that he is trying to add a bit of flair, throwing in some more advanced vocab and changing up the sentences here and there. I've got Killgallon starting in the rotation next week and I'm hopeful that it will get him to think more about more complex structure. Considering where we started this year I'm absolutely thrilled.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I mentioned above how ds is really enjoying this, yesterday and today I cut him off 1hr into writing time. Finally today we started typing it up to save time but he still has a lot he wants to add to the story. We've edited some as well, when we went through it I noticed there was a misplaced modifier so it was a great chance to reinforce that concept from our grammar studies. We've never worked this long on any project so I'm anxious to see how far he wants to take it. One thing I thought was fun was that he had the character meet a magician who posed a riddle. He loves riddles and jokes so it was neat to see him work that into the story. His sentence structure and mechanics are still very basic but I see at points that he is trying to add a bit of flair, throwing in some more advanced vocab and changing up the sentences here and there. I've got Killgallon starting in the rotation next week and I'm hopeful that it will get him to think more about more complex structure. Considering where we started this year I'm absolutely thrilled.

 

:hurray: that is so great!!! :cheers2:

[LolaT]

What is the release date for the next two books 3 & 4?

 

I just got an answer on their Facebook page --

 

 

Classical Academic Press Book 3 is April and Book 4 is June. Samples will be up as soon as the files go to the printer.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I mentioned above how ds is really enjoying this, yesterday and today I cut him off 1hr into writing time. Finally today we started typing it up to save time but he still has a lot he wants to add to the story. We've edited some as well, when we went through it I noticed there was a misplaced modifier so it was a great chance to reinforce that concept from our grammar studies. We've never worked this long on any project so I'm anxious to see how far he wants to take it. One thing I thought was fun was that he had the character meet a magician who posed a riddle. He loves riddles and jokes so it was neat to see him work that into the story. His sentence structure and mechanics are still very basic but I see at points that he is trying to add a bit of flair, throwing in some more advanced vocab and changing up the sentences here and there. I've got Killgallon starting in the rotation next week and I'm hopeful that it will get him to think more about more complex structure. Considering where we started this year I'm absolutely thrilled.

It is so much fun when you start hearing your kid's distinct voice come through in writing!

[Syllieann]

These books are being used in the school right? Does anyone know what they do for grammar? I wish they would put that out with it.

[Soror]

It is so much fun when you start hearing your kid's distinct voice come through in writing!

Yes, it is so neat, and he is so much more creative than me. He was chomping at the bit to type it all up today as he had so much he wanted to get out but he is just not fast enough typing. It is funny he started out such a reluctant writer but I think writing might end up being one of his strengths. This program has been great to bring that out. I know when NaNoWriMo came around last year I was thinking ds was light years away from doing something like that and now I'm thinking that next Nov he will be ready and excited for it.

[Soror]

These books are being used in the school right? Does anyone know what they do for grammar? I wish they would put that out with it.

Hmm, that's a good question. I'd be interested to see it considering how much we are enjoying WR.

[Roadrunner]

I didn't want to start a new thread. I am looking at samples for Narrative 2 and it looks like a continuation of Narrative 1 with little new material. I am tempted to skip over the level and go straight to book 4 when it comes out. Any thoughts? Do you think doing IEW instead for a semester would enhance our writing experience or do you think it's better to stick with one program like one would do with math? I want WWS type assignments for younger kids. Where else can I look?

[MamaSprout]

Hmm, that's a good question. I'd be interested to see it considering how much we are enjoying WR.

 

I think it's a classical school, so they may be covering it with their Latin program plus a light grammar program (like Memoria Press does).

 

I've ordered a few levels of older Holt/ Warriner's English textbooks. I think we'll use pieces and parts of those b/c they teach sentence diagramming in addition to having nice extras to supplement CAP.

[Clear Creek]

I didn't want to start a new thread. I am looking at samples for Narrative 2 and it looks like a continuation of Narrative 1 with little new material. I am tempted to skip over the level and go straight to book 4 when it comes out. Any thoughts? Do you think doing IEW instead for a semester would enhance our writing experience or do you think it's better to stick with one program like one would do with math? I want WWS type assignments for younger kids. Where else can I look?

 

Did you look at the sample of the teacher's guide for book 3?  It has instructions for giving more difficult work to students that need it, like outlining the story instead of giving an oral narration.  I would continue with book 3 with my students, but you know your own kids best.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I didn't want to start a new thread. I am looking at samples for Narrative 2 and it looks like a continuation of Narrative 1 with little new material. I am tempted to skip over the level and go straight to book 4 when it comes out. Any thoughts? Do you think doing IEW instead for a semester would enhance our writing experience or do you think it's better to stick with one program like one would do with math? I want WWS type assignments for younger kids. Where else can I look?

 

Yeah, I don't know.  I'm kind of in the opposite position - I'm thinking of running my 6th grader back through Narrative 2, quickly, this spring, and doing Chreia with her when it comes out.  I feel like I'm just going in circles with her with writing - she is totally solid on the pieces, but I'm having trouble helping her put it all together and move forward.  We dislike WWS, but I'm not sure what else is out there, pre-essay writing, that we'd like.  And I don't know that I"m giving her the help she needs to take the next step on her own.  

[Roadrunner]

Did you look at the sample of the teacher's guide for book 3? It has instructions for giving more difficult work to students that need it, like outlining the story instead of giving an oral narration. I would continue with book 3 with my students, but you know your own kids best.

I saw the outlining (we have done this though in history). I really like the program, but I am not sure about book 3.

[Roadrunner]

Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of in the opposite position - I'm thinking of running my 6th grader back through Narrative 2, quickly, this spring, and doing Chreia with her when it comes out. I feel like I'm just going in circles with her with writing - she is totally solid on the pieces, but I'm having trouble helping her put it all together and move forward. We dislike WWS, but I'm not sure what else is out there, pre-essay writing, that we'd like. And I don't know that I"m giving her the help she needs to take the next step on her own.

I really wish for a larger and more fleshed out selection of MCT writing. Our favorite writing assignments are coming out of Caesar's English and Paragraph town, but there are simply not enough of them. I am also thinking to come up with some myself along the MCT lines (for example, write another comparison paragraph, only do two paragraphs on the second try....). Part of me is too scared to improvise and wants to stick with narrative 2, but I am not sure what new skills we would get.

[Wabi Sabi]

There's really just one thing holding me back so far from ordering Fables and giving it a try: I SO wish that they were available in PDF. We frequently school while on the go, and it's much easier to have instructor's manuals on the Kindle and carry only the needed student pages for that day.

[Clear Creek]

I saw the outlining (we have done this though in history). I really like the program, but I am not sure about book 3.

 

You can always wait until the samples for book 4 are out and make your decision then, once you can see if book 4 assumes any new skills.  Book 4 is supposed to be out this summer, so as long as you don't need the next book before August there is no harm in waiting to make the decision.

 

I just glanced at your signature, though, and unless your children are very advanced in writing, you might not want to skip ahead in the series since they are both younger than the lower end of the recommended age/grade.  The writing skills may eventually be past them if you use it that far ahead.  On the other hand, if your children are quite advanced in writing, you might want to reconsider using W&R since the production schedule will be behind where they are.  They are putting out two books per year, so books 5&6 will not be out for another year, and each book takes less than a semester to go through.

[skeeterbug]

There's really just one thing holding me back so far from ordering Fables and giving it a try: I SO wish that they were available in PDF. We frequently school while on the go, and it's much easier to have instructor's manuals on the Kindle and carry only the needed student pages for that day.

They do have them as ebooks, not pdf, but it looks like you need a separate app, not sure it would work on a Kindle. I also wish they had them as pdf, but was excited when I saw the ebook option.

[Wabi Sabi]

They do have them as ebooks, not pdf, but it looks like you need a separate app, not sure it would work on a Kindle. I also wish they had them as pdf, but was excited when I saw the ebook option.

Where are you finding the ebook option? When I go to the shopping page for W&R this is all I see:

 

http://classicalacademicpress.com/brands/Writing-%26-Rhetoric.html?sort=pricedesc

[Chelli]

Where are you finding the ebook option? When I go to the shopping page for W&R this is all I see:

 

http://classicalacademicpress.com/brands/Writing-%26-Rhetoric.html?sort=pricedesc

 

The ebooks are listed under a separate heading.

 

http://classicalacademicpress.com/ebooks/

[MamaSprout]

The ebooks are listed under a separate heading.

 

http://classicalacademicpress.com/ebooks/

 

That would work great for us. TE on the iPad. We cut the binding off and 3 hole punch the student books, anyhow. I hope they consider selling them loose leaf. I'm sure as the series gets more advanced, the books will be thicker.

 

I'm considering Hake + CAP. We're doing LoE this year, and really love having things integrated.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Shannon did the Amplification exercise in Lesson 2 of Narrative 2 today, and she had so much fun!  She did a super long, super detailed amplification, a lot longer than you would expect from a 4th grader, at least, but that's appropriate because it's a review of skills which she has down solidly.  Despite that,  I think I will let her do this book, even though it's technically too easy.  We both find it really fun.  And I think we need writing to be a pleasure and not a chore for awhile . . . we've kind of been spinning our wheels with writing this year. I have hopes that she'll be able to keep using it as it comes out, and get something out of it, even though she'll be "ahead" technically of the releases.

 

Morgan did the fable rewrite of Lesson 4 of Fable, and I was so proud of her! She did such a nice job on her story.  First she planned what her characters were going to be, and what was going to happen, then she dictated and I scribed for her.  Then she copied part of it into the book in her own writing, but I finished for her after her hand "fell off."  She still needs to be able to do the thinking and the writing separately, but her thinking has come such a long way just in these 4 lessons!  I'm ok with partially scribing for her on the think-heavy exercises (she wrote the summary herself this time, so she's making progress toward independent writing).  

 

I guess I'm just sharing all this to say that here I am with two kids, one using it "too soon" and one using it "too late" and we are still reaping great benefits.  I think it's a flexible program with a lot to offer and can be used by kids in a broad range of skill levels/grades, so don't get too hung up on the grade levels on the cover!

[JadeOrchidSong]

Do you need both student book and TM or the TM is sufficient?

[Chrysalis Academy]

The TM is the student book with the answers filled in on the blanks.  So the books are identical, the TM just has the answers filled in.  If you think you need the answers, get both.  I've been using just the student book.  At the beginning levels, I don't find that I need to refer to the answer book.  The only exception is for dictation - the sentences they want you to use for dictation are only in the TM.  You can easily substitute sentences from the story, however.

 

I would not try to do this program with just the TM - you either have to do it entirely orally, which it really isn't set up for.  You would have to write a ton of sentences on a whiteboard or something.  I'm actually not sure how you'd pull that off.  Or you'd have to go through and post-it over all the answers if you are going to have your student look through the book - and there are a lot of blanks.   I would think that would be a royal pain.

[JadeOrchidSong]

This is very helpful, Rose. I looked at the samples of both and the only difference is the answers in the TM. I also just read the google book School Composition and although it is very solid, it is the same format lesson after lesson and I feel bored myself. W&R is certainly visually appealing and less monotonous. So it wins! Is Book 4 out yet? We have to do both 3 and 4 this school year.

[JadeOrchidSong]

I just got an answer from CAP by email. Book 4 will be out at the end of this month! Great!

[Chrysalis Academy]

I emailed them to ask, Book 4 is due out late July.  Books 5 & 6 will be out in spring/summer 2015.

 

I'm like you - I looked at School Comp and wanted to like it, but it looked boring to me too.  If I'm bored by a curriculum, it's a pretty sure bet my kids will be.  W&R is definitely not boring!

 

ETA: we were typing at the same time - I'm glad we're all emailing them to ask! Maybe it'll light a fire under them!!  ;)

[LolaT]

Me too.

 

I'm hoping it will be available through Rainbow Resource at about the same time so I can order curriculum altogether.

[Mommamia]

We've been using it ( with 2 children ) orally. It's been working fine so far. In today's lesson they had to amplify a story. I read the story, and then we went through it line by line as they amplified it together. It was sort of a collaboration. I'm ok with doing it this way because this is our summer relaxed format. If we continue in the fall I would probably write it out on a whiteboard and have them complete on paper.

[Canadianmumof5]

We have the books and i was planning on starting Fable with DS7 (rising 4th) in the fall. DD10 was going to do Classical Composition Fable/Narrative through MP but my interest in CAP is piqued for her :). I was looking at the online class for CAP and wondering if that might be a good option for her. Writing is def not her favourite subject, nor is it mine to teach so I am outsourcing it for sure. Anyone else doing CAP online classes this fall?

[Amy M]

Rose, I'm wondering for your younger daughter, if you read the fables to her? Was she able to read them on her own? I was looking at prices on Rainbow Resource vs. CAP's prices, and wondered if the mp3 audio files are worth it, or if a child can easily read the selection on his own. I was thinking to do it more towards the end of 3rd grade.

 

 

Morgan did the fable rewrite of Lesson 4 of Fable, and I was so proud of her! She did such a nice job on her story.  First she planned what her characters were going to be, and what was going to happen, then she dictated and I scribed for her.  Then she copied part of it into the book in her own writing, but I finished for her after her hand "fell off."  She still needs to be able to do the thinking and the writing separately, but her thinking has come such a long way just in these 4 lessons!  I'm ok with partially scribing for her on the think-heavy exercises (she wrote the summary herself this time, so she's making progress toward independent writing).