MBTP 9-11 question

[Guest spatch]

Hi,

I am new to this forum and new to homeschooling.  I am using the 9-11 MBTP for one of my daughters.  I was wondering if anyone else if having trouble getting through the units and lessons.  My daughter loves to write and read.  I would not consider her a slow worker, although she can get distracted at times. We spend 1.5 hours on the MBTP language arts and 1 hour for the social studies unit.  She also does silent reading  for 45 minutes.  We are so behind when I look at everything we still need to get through in the first nine weeks.  The books say do one lesson a day and in reality we only are getting about a half of a lesson done on each subject.  I like the curriculum but honestly I hate always feeling behind and feeling like we can't just take a day off and go play because we are already so behind and we just started. LOL!  Just wondering what your experience is and if anyone else felt that way.

 

Also, did anyone else feel that some of the activities are kind of a stretch?  For example, write a field guide about the plants and animals in the region and how they can be used or write a letter to an immigrant about what they would expect to find upon arriving in NY?  I like the ideas but those activities would take WAY longer than an hour to research and actually do an that was not the only activity in that lesson.  Any help or advice would be so appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[Syllieann]

We are using the 7-9 level of language arts, and the same thing applies. It would take well over an hour if we did everything as written. I leave any art extensions as a choice for Ds. I also scribe the pre-writing stage, but that might not save time for an older kid. When the child is told to draw a picture, we skip it unless it is directly relevant to the objective of the lesson. Depending on your child's attitude toward reading, you might consider removing the 45 minute silent reading block from school time. Instead, declare the 45 minutes before bedtime to be silent reading. It's a good way to relax and get the body ready for sleep anyway.

[HomeAgain]

You didn't say how old your daughter is.  We loved the activities, but did them on the upper end of the age range and allowed for flexibility.  We also only used the lit guides, not social studies or science.  Too much of anything can be overkill. 

 

If you like the style of MBTP, but want something more fluid, you might want to look at World of Adventure for next year.  Everything is integrated and the day is planned out for you.  You still get the creative projects and the literature, but it's more gentle I think. 

[EmilyGF]

If you join the MBtP group on facebook, you'll see lots of comments like, "I was hoping to finish this in a year, but this curriculum is going to take 18 months." It isn't just you.

Emily

[SanDiegoMom]

My very schedule oriented friend is doing the whole 9-11 year with her 10 1/2 year old gifted dd. And they are always behind. They just started two weeks ago and haven't gone a day without having to slide something.  I did one unit from 9-11 and I just picked my favorite activities and used it as a guide. Most of the questions we just discussed without writing the answers, some of the projects I just skipped...I liked how it helped me bring out themes I wouldn't have necessarily talked about, but I think if we had done it as written they would have burned out.

[Guest spatch]

Thank you so much for your responses.  I feel so much better now!!  Being new to homeschooling I wasn't sure if I was missing something or just doing something wrong. :)    I'm going to just relax about skipping the things I feel are not necessary and just move on.  Sorry I forgot to mention that my daughter is 9 years old.  Thanks for the World Adventure idea, I am going to look into it!

[SweetandSimple]

There are a lot of great things about MBtP, but we NEVER do everything that is assigned for each lesson.

 

I made the decision that we were NOT going to get behind, and so we do what we can of each lesson (and what seems most important), and then we move on to the next lesson on the next day. 

 

Some people do the opposite-- they decide that they will do all (or most) of the activities, but they usually accept that it will take longer than a school year to complete each level. I think that is a fine option, too, but I think that you'll be happier if you pick one or the other! Trying to do all of it on a schedule will be no fun.

 

Good luck!

[Guest spatch]

Yeah Nurse Bee,

I like your idea better bc I want to decide what and if we work on in the summer rather than feeling like we have to finish up what we didn't do during the school year.  I'm going to go with your idea!! Thanks so much!!

[abacus2]

I am also using MBtP 9-11. MBtP has some great stuff, but occasionally throws in a 6 hour activity in the middle of the supposedly 1.5 hour lesson. I think sometimes the writers just get excited and suggest that the kids do EVERYTHING.