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Not sure HOW to use MCT...?


MEVmom
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I'm looking for something new for grammar/writing this year. My son just finished R&S 6 and he was so bored. He just gets it already, and I want something different, creative, etc. I really like how MCT includes poetry. But I can't seem to figure out how to use the program... Do you use all the components? If so, do you do them all every day? If not, what do you do?

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That's what I thought.  Sorry I'm no help.  I asked because I was going to provide a link to someone's schedule for the Island level. 

 

Just wanted to be sure that it wasn't Island.  I don't know anything about RS, but if I had known he did FLL 1 - 4 as well, I wouldn't have asked. 

 

Sorry to have bothered you. 

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We have only done island and town, and we are skipping voyage, but the set up is the same for all the lower levels.

 

MCT provides a flow chart but in a nut shell, start with grammar voyage, read it through and then move onto essay voyage and the practice book. Midway through that add in poetry. You can do the vocabulary at any point.

 

This is a very succinct answer as I'm on my phone, but just know it's not something that has a rigid schedule.

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I've done Island and we're working on Town now. With the assumption that Voyage works the same, I'll share what we do. The vocab in Town is much more than in Island, so I'll refer to how we're doing Town.

 

We started with the Grammar book. We did that however many days a week we set aside for the program until it was done. After that, we did one sentence from Practice Island at a time, a few days per week. We work in Caesar's English three days per week. We do the poetry in chunks about once a month, typically just before we have a BraveWriter poetry tea.

 

So, after the Grammar book it looks something like:

Monday - Caesar's English, about the first half of a chapter

Tuesday - Practice Island sentence, occasional Poetry section

Wednesday - Caesar's English, usually finishing a chapter

Thursday - Practice Island sentence, maybe the review at the end of the CE chapter

Friday - chapter quiz for CE, Practice Island sentence

*We decided to wait to add in Paragraph Town. That will likely get added on the Tuesdays we don't do poetry. Or in addition to. Who knows?

 

And despite the routine above, we tend to just go with the flow. The MCT books are very unscheduled, which works well for our relaxed style, but I know drives some others batty.

 

ETA: The current routine takes us maybe 30 minutes/day. We stop and chat about the material as we read together, so that's not straight reading.

Edited by Jackie
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Ok, about how much time per day? And out of curiosity why are you skipping voyage?

It seemed like a repeat of what we already read in Island & Town. We are doing the intermediate Literature Level instead. :)

 

As for time a day, that's totally flexible as well. We spent 30-60 minutes a day because we loved it. You could definitely stretch it out and do shorter lessons.

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DD is doing voyage at the moment, we have done island and town (and Ds is doing town this year too)

With mct it's more of a flow approach. You begin with the first book - grammar voyage. We read a few pages each lesson (4 lessons a week), I guess we'd read for around 20 minutes or less, stopping at a natural point.

When we get to the end - or near the end - the other books come in, we finished grammar voyage a few weeks ago. Now Dd has 3 practice voyage sentences a week, they take less than 10 minutes. We do 2 lessons of essay voyage - that book is broken up into quite nice lessons - maybe 20-30 minutes each.

Then I have another one or two lessons with the other books (after grammar voyage is finished) usually vocab and then poetry when we finish the vocab.

 

I guess the simple way to explain it is that we spend about 20-30-40 minutes each lesson working though the books in a pattern of grammar voyage first then the other books.

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Just open the grammar book and start reading.  Stop when it seems appropriate.  Once you're done with the grammar book, add the practice book, one sentence per day.  At the same time add the writing book--open and read, stopping when appropriate.  You can do the assignments (we never did) as you go or at the end.

 

Start the vocabulary book when you start the grammar book.  In terms of schedule, it works like a normal vocabulary program--go through exercises, study words, take test, repeat.  

 

The poetry book can also be done at the same time as the writing book or you can do it afterwards.  If you have your student do the writing assignments as you go, you'll probably want to do the poetry book at the same time, as you may run out of time at the end of the year if you don't.

 

When I finally decided *not* to schedule MCT (and do it like I described above) was when I was finally able to wrap my mind around how to schedule it!

 

 

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Our flow went like this:

 

-Read the Grammar Voyage book

      after finishing GV:

-Start completing a Practice Voyage Sentence everyday

      after a week or two of just doing sentences:

-Add in Caesar's English

     after a week or two of doing both the sentences and the vocabulary:

-Add in Essay Voyage 

      after finishing both Caesar's English & Essay Voyage:

-Add in poetry book

       Dd finished up both Practice Voyage & the poetry book before the end of the year.

 

Our heaviest point was when she was doing Practice Voyage, Caesar's English, and Essay Voyage. To make it manageable we broke it down like this:

Mon - Do 1 sentence from Practice Voyage. Read the new chapter in Caesar's English and make flashcards for new words & stems.

Tue & Wed - Do 1 sentence from PV. Review the CE flashcards. Read from Essay Voyage.

Thur - Do 1 sentence from PV. Take CE Quiz. Read from Essay Voyage.

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