MFW 1st grade or SSRW & FIAR?.........

[Allison TX]

I am trying to decide what to use for my K/1st dd. She is almost finished with MFW K. I am not sure she is quite ready for the writing required in MFW 1st. However, I don't want to wait because I want her to keep progressing with phonics. Are there ways to modify the writing in MFW 1st?

 

I have also been looking at Sing Spell Read and Write Level 1. It looks like a fun program and seems like the writing can be modified. Would this work well with something like Five in a Row?

 

I really would like to do something fun with my daughter. I want her to love learning. Looking back, I took some of the fun out of the early years for my boys by requiring too much "real" work and making it feel more like school. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

 

 

Are there any other programs that are lots of fun for K/1st but don't have a lot of History or textbooks?

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thank you!:)

 

Allison

[Allison TX]

bump:)

[cbollin]

sorry for late chime in.... I saw Christina has answered, but didn't read it until later (giggle)

 

My oldest used SSRW and FIAR in 1st grade. So yes they do work together. But, the biggest thing that I was missing in that combination was helping my daughter learn how to write. SSRW was a lot of worksheet (designed for classroom). In those days, I knew nothing of copywork, not really much on dictation, and not learning to write a sentence or 3 summary of a story in their own words. It was good for the phonics and learning to read.

 

My second daughter used MFW 1st grade. Phonics wise, this dd was ahead of the program. MFW 1st grade student workbook is less writing than the SSRW student workbook was. In addition to the blue student workbook in MFW 1st, MFW 1st grade offers the good stuff of copywork (Proverbs memory and handwriting verses), and learning to write narrative summaries. Even then, it wasn't always overwhelming for us to use

 

I continued to use the readers in SSRW with my 2nd child. I even thought it was needed to do the SSRW tests with her for a long time. rolling my eyes at myself for all of that testing that wasn't needed. I did it to prove to her speech therapist that she could do it. As to FIAR, we just ended up reading the books and enjoying them instead of trying to do more unit study with them the way I did with oldest. I liked it, and I didn't like it. But I liked the books.

 

I think it is easy to adjust the amount of handwriting in MFW 1st. You can slowly build up the copywork with the Proverbs verse. My dd wasn't ready to do a whole verse in one day at the very beginning of the year. It's ok to break that up. The workbook in MFW 1st isn't that much handwriting. And the Bible notebook narrative summaries don't begin until around day 41 of the program. It starts off as "copywork" on that notebook and builds up over time.

 

-crystal

Edited October 20, 2008 by cbollin
clarify a bit

[Allison TX]

Thanks Crystal and Christina. I appreciate the comparison between these programs and the amount of writing involved.

 

 

Allison