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Online classes for 2019-2020?


Rosepetal
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I already have my dd who will be in 6th registered for Chreia/Maxim composition with Memoria Press Online Academy. 

She will take more classes but this was one that had to be registered for right away.  It is with a very popular teacher and the class is already full. I'm one who is always on the early side planning and registering but I haven't done anything else yet because the schedule for MPOA is still not 100% set. I'm waiting on a couple more class sections to announce teachers and times before making any more decisions. 

I am in agreement that it is still really early, particularly for the younger set.

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13 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

I already have my dd who will be in 6th registered for Chreia/Maxim composition with Memoria Press Online Academy. 

She will take more classes but this was one that had to be registered for right away.  It is with a very popular teacher and the class is already full. I'm one who is always on the early side planning and registering but I haven't done anything else yet because the schedule for MPOA is still not 100% set. I'm waiting on a couple more class sections to announce teachers and times before making any more decisions. 

I am in agreement that it is still really early, particularly for the younger set.

Could you tell me how rigorous's the Fable and Narrative writing class?  How many writing assignments are given as homework each week? How's the course load? How much time's spent on the homework daily/weekly?  How long are the classes? Have you seen improvements in your child's writing? Does a child has to type the assignment in word document to submit? 

May l ask that how many writing projects till now from September your dc has done? ls their writing each week? Could you clarify what types of writing they have written? Do you've to help your dc in the writing assignment?

What are your opinions on those as far as difficulty, appropriate level of work for the ages, etc.? (l am thinking for 4th Grader) Are they rigorous?

Thanks in advance for any input.

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My dd is in a 5th grade (she will be 11 at the end of this school year). We did Fable together at home in 4th following the MP plans and she is in Narrative now. As far as workload it is very manageable and totally consistent and predictable. They spend two weeks on each lesson. The first week they discuss the story they will be writing a paraphrase of and outline the 9 narrative components and turn that in. The following week the final draft of the paraphrase of the story is due. So every second week is heavier as we work on the final draft. At the end of the year she will have turned in 16 writing paraphrases of the stories in the Narrative book. There are other assignments given (such as narrating the story to a parent, looking up vocabulary words) that are not checked or turned in. We do them but they are just a few minutes per day. 

I do help my dd with this class and I do more often than not type her final draft for her. She is working on typing though and taking on more and more of that herself. I used to type for her during class but she has gotten fast enough to do that herself. It was her first online class so my intent was always to work with her to be successful.

My dd’s writing has improved dramatically but she has really grown in all her subjects this year so part of that is surely a leap in maturity. The biggest thing about the class is that she just loves it. It is engaging and fun and she enjoys the opportunities to share her work with the class and read what the other kids write.

I think the age range in the class is 8- 13 yo (the kids have chatted about their ages before class) so it obviously is working for a large range of students. 

I wouldn’t put a child that young in and expect them to be independent. I always sit with my daughter so I can make sure she understands what she needs to do and I work with her on typing, editing her assignments. There is not a ton of specific feedback on the writing. The teacher is mostly checking off a rubric and being encouraging. 

We are very pleased and it has fit our circumstances perfectly. I never intended my dd to be independent. The class makes the work so much more enjoyable and she certainly gets more understanding of the stories and depth from the discussions than we would do at home. She is motivated to do a good job for her teacher and we stay on task with due dates. However, I am still working with her to fine tune her writing and help prod her along when she gets stuck. All that to say, the course and her instructor are just part of it. My coaching and encouragement and guidance has been a big part of it too. 

If you have seen the books for the course, the online class follows that format pretty closely spending two weeks per lesson. The class meetings are 2x a week for 45 minutes each (at least her Narrative class this year was). Next year her class will be once a week for 90 minutes.

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7 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

My dd is in a 5th grade (she will be 11 at the end of this school year). We did Fable together at home in 4th following the MP plans and she is in Narrative now. As far as workload it is very manageable and totally consistent and predictable. They spend two weeks on each lesson. The first week they discuss the story they will be writing a paraphrase of and outline the 9 narrative components and turn that in. The following week the final draft of the paraphrase of the story is due. So every second week is heavier as we work on the final draft. At the end of the year she will have turned in 16 writing paraphrases of the stories in the Narrative book. There are other assignments given (such as narrating the story to a parent, looking up vocabulary words) that are not checked or turned in. We do them but they are just a few minutes per day. 

I do help my dd with this class and I do more often than not type her final draft for her. She is working on typing though and taking on more and more of that herself. I used to type for her during class but she has gotten fast enough to do that herself. It was her first online class so my intent was always to work with her to be successful.

My dd’s writing has improved dramatically but she has really grown in all her subjects this year so part of that is surely a leap in maturity. The biggest thing about the class is that she just loves it. It is engaging and fun and she enjoys the opportunities to share her work with the class and read what the other kids write.

I think the age range in the class is 8- 13 yo (the kids have chatted about their ages before class) so it obviously is working for a large range of students. 

I wouldn’t put a child that young in and expect them to be independent. I always sit with my daughter so I can make sure she understands what she needs to do and I work with her on typing, editing her assignments. There is not a ton of specific feedback on the writing. The teacher is mostly checking off a rubric and being encouraging. 

We are very pleased and it has fit our circumstances perfectly. I never intended my dd to be independent. The class makes the work so much more enjoyable and she certainly gets more understanding of the stories and depth from the discussions than we would do at home. She is motivated to do a good job for her teacher and we stay on task with due dates. However, I am still working with her to fine tune her writing and help prod her along when she gets stuck. All that to say, the course and her instructor are just part of it. My coaching and encouragement and guidance has been a big part of it too. 

If you have seen the books for the course, the online class follows that format pretty closely spending two weeks per lesson. The class meetings are 2x a week for 45 minutes each (at least her Narrative class this year was). Next year her class will be once a week for 90 minutes.

Thanks for sharing!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well looks like we are all in for online classes with MPOA for my 6th grade dd. She will be in Chreia/Maxim, First Form Latin, Middle School Science 1, Middle School Lit 1, and 6th grade math. 

I’m a little conflicted because I definitely can teach some (all!) of these courses myself. There is no doubt though that my dd loves the format and strives to do her best for her online teachers. I’ll be very involved, though. With my dd in her MPOA classes it is as though we are a team taking the class together. So that is pretty fun, too. 

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20 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Well looks like we are all in for online classes with MPOA for my 6th grade dd. She will be in Chreia/Maxim, First Form Latin, Middle School Science 1, Middle School Lit 1, and 6th grade math. 

I’m a little conflicted because I definitely can teach some (all!) of these courses myself. There is no doubt though that my dd loves the format and strives to do her best for her online teachers. I’ll be very involved, though. With my dd in her MPOA classes it is as though we are a team taking the class together. So that is pretty fun, too. 

I’d love to sign my DD up for multiple classes at MPOA but yikes, spendy! Do they offer any type of discount if you’re in more than one?

And DD will be in MS Science 1, too. First time in an online class.

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1 hour ago, Trilliumlady said:

I’d love to sign my DD up for multiple classes at MPOA but yikes, spendy! Do they offer any type of discount if you’re in more than one?

And DD will be in MS Science 1, too. First time in an online class.

Yes, spendy for sure. She is the baby of my family so she does sometimes get to do things we didn’t when I was homeschooling four kids. There is the 10%. discount for early registration but that is it. However, they do not charge student registration fees or administrative fees in addition to the course fees. So, while MPOA is not cheap it is less than some of the others people recommend. 

I used to overbuy curriculum or think we weren’t doing enough and keep adding stuff midyear, etc. so for our family, personally, the cost is not so out of line with buying all the latest greatest curriculum. I also am on my last child so it is different than when I would invest in a curriculum always thinking it would be used for several children (which it often was not). 

Even a full load at MPOA is half the price of our not so great private school in town 🙂 

I hope your dd enjoys her class but not so much you feel like you need to take a whole slate of classes! My dd enjoys it tremendously but I always want to point out that homeschooling works too and you should not feel like you need online classes if it isn’t in the budget. 

I think MPOA is a great choice for a first online class. 

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