Guest Dippy Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Hi, We are working on FFL1 with DS7. As the mom-teacher, I like that FFL has the lessons all planned out and I just need to get to the lesson each day. However, the seemingly endless repetitive approach in FFL (12 lessons on noun and the lessons on verb does not seem promising either) is frustrating both DS and I. So I have been trying to find an alternative and came across MCT. I really like the samples shown the website so far. I really like that it gives the big picture overview. However, I am also reading that MCT is kind of loosey-gooey. I would hate to sink in $150 for the curriculum only to find that it is too much work to implement it. Does anyone has experience with FFL and MCT and can share, coming from FFL, how much harder would it be to implement MCT on my own? Sounds like I need to read and discuss Grammar Island with DS for the 1st Quarter and then continue on to Practice Island for daily exercises? Also, is there any benefit to doing both FFL and MCT (so MCT is more like a supplement to FFL) or that would be too much overlap? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 I love FFL. It's easy and an open/go curriculum. However, my ds didn't care too much for the repetitiveness as well. Because of this I skipped a lot of lessons. End up only doing up to lesson 50 in FFL 2. What appealed to me about MCT is the colorfulness and the fact a lot of reviewers kept mentioning the way he had with words. The beauty of language if you will. As it turns out, my ds loves MCT. We just started, so couldn't give you an in depth review. If you want to try it out, you could probably just start with MCT Grammar Island teacher's manual. I haven't started Sentence Island, so couldn't advice there. (My ds loves Building Language). I actually plan on combining the two. Call me crazy. I love sentence diagramming the way FFL approaches it. I plan on implementing FFL 3 on the dry erase board done orally. It's not set in stone. If I don't get around to it, it's alright (which is most likely will happen). I'm confident that MCT will work. I don't plan on using the writing component of MCT. If your child loves Language Arts, then I see no problem in doing both (just plan to skip a lot of lessons in FFL). But if your child doesn't love LA, then I wouldn't push it. Grammar is something that will be taught again in middle school. No need to do both. Hth and that you get other advices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 I had the same concerns. I have never been able to schedule out MCT, which bothers me on a stupid level. You kind of have to (imo and ime) accept a "let's just read the book(s) and see what happens" approach. It's absolutely been worth it in our house. The later levels are a bit easier to parse out, but Island has been more about reading until I suspect their attention might begin to wane, and then practicing what they learned. My dds did the first half of the original FLL, and it did not stick, whether despite or because of the constant repetition. We switched and did Island and Town in a short amount of time (less than 2 years, can't remember if it was more than a regular year) and it clicked much better. One dd really mastered it all. The other dd didn't quite master it, but got a pretty solid grasp. We did some FLL 3 after that for more practice. My younger kids are doing MCT in place of FLL 1/2, but we'll probably hit 3 and maybe 4 for more practice for them, too. Probably not the entire books, though. My 3rd grader has had a bit of a late start. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumbatoo Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 If you look on the Royal Fireworks site, there is a pdf explaining how to work through the MCT books. Also, someone planned out a daily schedule. I found out by a Google search, but it's also in the MCT fb group if you decide to go that route. I reworked her schedule a little to flow more like the suit recommended. I think having that daily schedule helped us not go too fast. No experience with FLL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fardo Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 http://satorismiles.com/2011/06/10/mct-island-schedule/ This is the schedule Tumbatoo is referring to, the order is a bit different than what's suggested by MCT. Also it schedules the entire LA programme, excluding the literature component, not just the grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scbusf Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Here is another schedule for the MCT Island Level. I feel like I've seen a 3rd one, but of course I didn't save it! http://eclectic-homeschool.com/michael-clay-thompson-language-arts-island-level-schedule/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sahamamama Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 When my oldest was that age, I had some of the same concerns about FLL 1 & 2 -- the repetition, the (seeming) lack of retention, the sense of futility, the boredom (hers and mine, LOL). I did the same thing you've done, too. I looked at MCT online and it seemed so... different? Enticing? Colorful? But the price tag! We stuck with FLL, all four levels of it. Now that we've gone all the way through Levels 1, 2, 3, and nearly all of 4, I can see that the brief, consistent work we did in those early years did pay off. I think that where it paid off the most was when we transitioned from Level 2 to Level 3. There was a "jump" from Level 2 to Level 3 that was probably a lot easier for my students (all three of them), due to the earlier work we had done. All the definitions were down pat, they could identify most of those parts of speech, and we could begin with diagramming. We also got more into Latin at that time, along with French, so some of the grammar concepts began to reinforce each other across the languages. Having said that, I do think that FLL can be adapted to be the tool you need it to be. You don't have to do everything in it, or do every lesson as a separate lesson. You can combine 2-3 lessons into one lesson to speed it along. Just look ahead, and see what could combine well. We have never done the picture narrations, the story narrations (have those in WWE), the poetry (we do our own), the copywork or dictations (have those in WWE & elsewhere), or anything other than the grammar. We have done the letter writing lessons (worth doing), contraction lessons (worth doing), and dictionary lessons (well-worth doing) of Levels 3 and 4, but otherwise we stick with "just" the grammar lessons. We also don't try to finish one level per year. IMO, there is just no reason to push through at that pace. Kindergarten -- FLL 1 (grammar only, all of it, orally) 1st Grade -- FLL 2 (grammar only, all of it, mostly orally) 2nd Grade -- FLL 3 (grammar only, first half) 3rd Grade -- FLL 3 (grammar only, second half) 4th Grade -- FLL 4 (grammar only, first half) 5th Grade -- FLL 4 (grammar only, second half) HTH. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We just wrapped Island level and loved every minute. I did schedule it out, using the guidance on the Royal Fireworks Press site. Here's what we did: http://everchangingchild.blogspot.com/2015/03/michael-clay-thompson-island-level.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dippy Posted December 24, 2015 Share Posted December 24, 2015 Thank you everyone! These are really useful and encouraging! I am really glad I am not alone with my dilemma on FLL. It is a good program, I feel my son does have a good grasp of nouns after trudging through it. But drives me nuts when my son start rolling his eyes whenever I ask him for the definition of a noun. @Sahamamama, thanks for the advice on skipping through stuff on FLL. I was afraid that skipping over the narration and copy work stuff may make the program less effective. I was also worried that we were falling behind on days when we skipped grammar lesson just because we don't really want to do another "repetition on what is a noun". I haven't seen "sentence diagramming" in FFL yet, but it does seems like FFL3 is a good thing to get back to even after MCT. So that would be a good thing to keep in mind. Thanks for all the links to the daily schedule, with that I am more inclined to give MCT a try! Yes, I was pretty shocked to see the prices for MCT... and that's for just one subject. So hopefully I can get my hands on a used copy, if not, I might just start out with Grammar Island as suggested to get a feel for things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunshineslp Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 I looked at MCT but the price deterred me:-/ but you seasoned FLL people, could you say whether or not you need to start at level 1? It'd be for 1st-2nd grade. :) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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