Too much for "language arts?"

[Janeway]

I am wondering if I just tried to take on more than should be.

I have always done Spelling Workout (older edition), BJU English, some sort of handwriting, and then reading from various other sources. I am referring to after phonics.  ALso, I have been looking at CAP W&R for a long time and wanted to try it. I tried it with one of the older kids but he was already 6th or 7th grade when we started so it did not really go over well. 

 

Now, with 4th grader, we had almost finished BJU English 3 last year but still had 6 chapters left so we tried to jump in and start where we left off. This did not go well. He had forgotten what a lot of things were so it did not go well to jump in 2/3 of the way through the year after a three month break. Last year, we did BJU English 2 and much of 3, so we did plenty. At this point, I was unsure about going on to BJU English 4 as I was kind of bored with using that program, I had used it for years. And I remembered I had the free download for The Good and the Beautiful LA. So I started using TGTB LA with son. Turns out, we love it! And we are still doing Spelling Workout E as we had already started it. And a little book of story starters. TGTB has dictation and such, I used to make up my own dictation sentences. We do narration from our readings and TGTB has that. We still do narrations from our other readings in literature and history and such.  We also have handwriting. 

 

Then I saw CAP W&R at a used book store, Fable, complete set, clearly unused and in perfect condition, so I bought it. I sat with son and tried to do the first lesson. He was not not getting it or anything. It is just that we had already done narrations and dictations and such elsewhere.  I really wanted to use W&R but now I am thinking it is just redundant on what we are already using. By the time we get to W&R, the focus is gone because we have already done so much else. I wanted to do it, but it feels a little forced after doing the rest. Anyone use a program like TGTB along side something like CAP W&R? Or would that just be too much?

[HomeAgain]

Oh, I wouldn't use both!  They're pretty full programs.  It's okay to just pick a path and go with it.

[Janeway]

30 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Oh, I wouldn't use both!  They're pretty full programs.  It's okay to just pick a path and go with it.

Thanks! I always was intrigued by CAP W&R, but since I did not start it until I after we started TGTB, it feels like I am just adding more work to the day rather than having fun with it. I can see how we could really have fun with it, if we were not already doing such similar stuff otherwise.

[Sarah0000]

I just bought W&R Fable (haven't received it yet) and I'm looking forward to replacing most of our LA pieces with it. That's part of the appeal for me. We'll probably end up rotating about every three weeks between Fable and our pieced-together LA. Maybe do both on a loop?

[Janeway]

14 hours ago, Sarah0000 said:

I just bought W&R Fable (haven't received it yet) and I'm looking forward to replacing most of our LA pieces with it. That's part of the appeal for me. We'll probably end up rotating about every three weeks between Fable and our pieced-together LA. Maybe do both on a loop?

I am now toying with dropping TGTB. Thing is, I like TGTB sections of poetry and literature and geography, but I do not feel it does a good job with teaching writing at all.  Plus, he is way ahead of the spelling and already knows everything from the spelling.