Syllieann Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Is the twss really that much more thorough? I'm going to do bible heroes next year and I don't know if I'm ready to go all in on iew. The webinars and tm make it look pretty self explanatory. My searches keep turning up posts saying the twss are needed for theme books but I can find nothing comparing to the webinars. I also have a hard time believing that having a deep understanding of the method is imperative for a 1st grade writing program. Any insight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 I watched the full TWSS last summer; honestly, I don't remember much - that's the downside to watching them all at once. I'm using one of the theme-based books this year with my 4th grader (through Classical Conversations Essentials). Before we begin a new unit, I generally watch an archived webinar to remind me of what I'm supposed to be teaching. I did buy the printed syllabus for the TWSS and do review each unit while/after watching the webinar. I think that would be plenty instruction. So, in short, I don't view the TWSS as absolutely necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsiew Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 I watched much of the TWSS video at once and I don't remember a lot either. I tend to look over the manual before I teach a new unit. If I can't remember something or want details on a way to teach certain parts I watch the video. The early units I'm pretty comfortable with, but the later units I need to watch when we hit them as I haven't taught them before (this is our first year with IEW). Since writing is not a comfortable subject for me to teach I like having the videos to watch/notebook to look over. I think one could probably just use a theme book and get by though... especially if you feel confident teaching writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 I'm doing Bible Heroes right now with my 1st and 2nd grader. I had done the PAL-writing and was familiar with the key word outlining, writing from that, using strong adjectives and adverbs, etc. So I didn't really feel a need for the video until we got to the story sequence sources portion (Unit 3) which I honestly feel is just trickier to teach than Unit 1 or 2. The manual instructed me to watch the video pertaining to Unit 3 and so I did. Then later in the lessons (near the end), there are two more videos to watch. I do think you could survive without them, especially if you have the syllabus. Or perhaps if you have a friend with the videos you could borrow them for a weekend. It really looks like I will only need to watch maybe three one hour segments total for the whole year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrapbabe Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 I totally think you could do the webinars and a theme book without the TWSS. I thought the webinars were more useful. I think he breaks it down better in the webinars. And if you take a live webinar you could ask specific questions that come up to help you understand even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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