Anyone drop The Good and The Beautiful??

[michaeljenn]

I used CLE for several years and then decided to try TG&TB for grades 2, 5 and 8.  We have used TG&TB for a few years now. I am starting to feel like it simply is not enough.  My daughter just took a placement test for The Potter's School English and completely bombed it.  I don't think that there is simply enough drill in TG&TB to really learn the concepts.  I like what I see in TG&TB and it is such a "sweet" curriculum and the kids like it, but is it truly getting the job done.  I wonder if the kids like it because the lessons are short, quick and don't require a lot of thinking versus Rod and Staff grammar or CLE.   I feel like my kids are behind now and I am extremely frustrated.  Just curious if I am the only one here...  

[rjand6more]

I have not used TG&TB History.  We tried LA  this year for level 4.  I made it to Christmas.  It was a horrible fit.  LA Pre K-level 1 has been absolutely perfect for my current 1st grader.  I do not plan on using it past Level 1.

We love the handwriting and nature books.  I also think the science books might make a good co op enrichment.

Short answer: No, I don't think it is enough.

[nixpix5]

We dropped it like a hot potato. We started the year with my 2nd grader doing level 2 language arts. About 6 or 7 lessons in I felt it wasn't adequate at all. She liked it alot but we simultaneously were doing SYS, rod and staff english, WWE and even some BJU english 3 stuff as well by about 40 lessons in. When I realized I had brought back all of our tried and true curriculum  I saw no need to continue TGTB. My DD asked to keep doing it but once she got about halfway she dropped it. 

There are some activities I like as supplements but I just couldn't get behind it as a complete program. It does have some sweet elements to it. We liked the art study alot. 

[Jenkins]

It was not a good fit for us either. My 1st grader flew through the LA in 8 weeks. It wasn't meaty enough for us. 

[Tenaj]

We ended up dropping it.  I think we worked on it almost until Christmas but I just wasn't seeing any progression of skills.  I loved the idea, but especially the grammar topics were not revisited often enough for it to stick with my kids.  We really enjoyed the literature part of it but the grammar was seriously lacking.  The phonics instruction in the younger grades (I had the first grade and third grade books) seemed very random rather than building one lesson upon another.  My kids do love the handwriting books though with the art mixed in but her style of cursive is much more "loopy" than what I'm used to so we went back to our normal curriculum and didn't look back.

[JanaKay]

I've been thinking about try this curriculum so much, but I'm concerned about the grammar, writing, spelling, and some of the literature (I haven't read much beside the early readers, and I wasn't too impressed with them. I think I'd rather choose my own books for them to read.)   And since those are kind of the main aspects of it, it doesn't seem like it will be the right fit for us.  The main reasons I'm attracted to it are because it incorporates art study (with beautiful pictures!), ads art lessons, includes some geography (although it doesn't look like much), is colorful and fun looking, and is all put together in a one main book for daily lessons (I know some levels have another book, plus a reader).

I think I might try it lightly over the summer and see how it goes.

I'm also thinking of putting together my own books put into daily lessons using other things that I think might work better for us. 

[HomeAgain]

2 hours ago, JanaKay said:

I've been thinking about try this curriculum so much, but I'm concerned about the grammar, writing, spelling, and some of the literature (I haven't read much beside the early readers, and I wasn't too impressed with them. I think I'd rather choose my own books for them to read.)   And since those are kind of the main aspects of it, it doesn't seem like it will be the right fit for us.  The main reasons I'm attracted to it are because it incorporates art study (with beautiful pictures!), ads art lessons, includes some geography (although it doesn't look like much), is colorful and fun looking, and is all put together in a one main book for daily lessons (I know some levels have another book, plus a reader).

I think I might try it lightly over the summer and see how it goes.

I'm also thinking of putting together my own books put into daily lessons using other things that I think might work better for us. 

These are the things that drew me to it.  Ultimately I'm glad it had a generous free pdf for the different levels, because I had huge reservations after reading through levels 2 & 3.  I found what I needed in ELTL: good books, writing, art study, grammar (we did our own dictation).  History has geography already so I didn't need that added in.  I'm thrilled with the progress my kid has made this year and the books he has been introduced to.

[JanaKay]

22 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

I found what I needed in ELTL: good books, writing, art study, grammar (we did our own dictation).  History has geography already so I didn't need that added in.  I'm thrilled with the progress my kid has made this year and the books he has been introduced to.

I didn't realize ELTL included art studies too...hummm....  I might need to look at it again!  In ELTL, do they read whole books, or just portions?  Is it considered a full grammar curriculum?  I was looking at Beowulf's Grammar too.  Looks fun!  I'm not quite sure how it works from grades 2-6 though.

[HomeAgain]

21 minutes ago, JanaKay said:

I didn't realize ELTL included art studies too...hummm....  I might need to look at it again!  In ELTL, do they read whole books, or just portions?  Is it considered a full grammar curriculum?  I was looking at Beowulf's Grammar too.  Looks fun!  I'm not quite sure how it works from grades 2-6 though.

The program is made up of read alouds to expose them to good writing and copywork based on that.  RLTL uses Elson Readers, and that's what we ended up choosing to go along with ELTL - not the whole program, just the readers.  The Elson Readers from 3 on up have discussion questions in the back and a variety of stories/poems. The grammar in ELTL is sufficient, with daily practice in diagramming and looking for the current lesson's focus in sentences - about 3 written exercises each day but encouraging word play orally - at least that's how it is in book 3/Cultivating.  I did make cards for my kid with each new grammar rule to memorize, but those are listed at the top of the lesson. Our daily pattern goes like this: copywork, I read the long story, he does the grammar work, I read the poem, he does dictation, and he reads to me/we discuss/he narrates.  On the art days we start with that, and the written narrations built in about every 2 weeks change the dynamic.  We usually skip the short story since he's narrating from the reader.

 

Ultimately this year I wanted something that felt light, but was constant and built upon itself slowly.  ELTL is doing that just fine for him and other than one or two of the Shakespeare stories, every book has been well received.  (Romeo and Juliet and I think Twelfth Night made him groan)

[Insertcreativenamehere]

I tried TGTB language arts for grades 2, 5 and 7 this year and it was a bust. The primary issue I had was with the all-in-one aspect: my kids (like most kids) are not totally synchronous -- one may need attention paid to spelling while another might need more time to develop composition skills. I felt that TGTB was trying to cover too many subjects and as a result, it had a scattered feel and didn't go deep enough in each individual area of the language arts. I didn't have quite the same issue with CLE when we used that; I think because CLE separates reading from the rest of the language arts. I did like the idea of including art and geography but the geography just wasn't thorough enough to count as an entire course. 

I do still use the science units for my elementary schoolers and I like them. 

 

 

[abacus2]

We dropped level 2 for the youngest, but I have been happy with it for level 4 and level 7.

[Holly]

7 hours ago, JanaKay said:

I didn't realize ELTL included art studies too...hummm....  I might need to look at it again!  In ELTL, do they read whole books, or just portions?  Is it considered a full grammar curriculum?  I was looking at Beowulf's Grammar too.  Looks fun!  I'm not quite sure how it works from grades 2-6 though.

 

I learned a lot of grammar from ELTL (as did my kids)!  I'd definitely consider it a full grammar program.  They read whole books, but we had hard time keeping up with them, so I'd say it's optional.  They really just pull sentences from them for diagramming.  The writing assignments are based on short folk tales.