How do you IEW?

[4atHome]

My 11 yr old dd is about finished with SWI A year 1.  I plan to go right into yr 2 when she finishes this and make it a year round subject for her.  She likes the videos and has been doing well with it.

I have not been doing well.  I watched about the first 3 teacher seminar sessions and gave up.  I like them, but didn't have time. 

I also have had SUCH a terrible time organizing her binder.  I know the teacher guide says where to put some things at the end of a lesson, but it doesn't say where to put everything.  I'm hoping with a new binder I can get this figured out.  It is always frustrating to me.  And I wonder, if I would have watched all 13 hrs of the teaching seminar, would I have this problem organizing her notebook?

So, did you use the teacher's course?  Should I really carve out time for it? Would it make everything better?

[Slache]

Do the teacher course.

I use theme books, Fix It! and Teaching The Classics.

[4atHome]

I know she would like the theme books but thought we should get through SWI first.  Did you do SWI?  We did start doing Fix It rather late in the process.  She quickly worked through book 1 and is now in book 2.  I am surprised I like it enough despite the lack of diagramming. It was too hard to use another grammar curriculum.  I don't even remember what the last one was that I was trying to use,  maybe MCT, or maybe I had moved on from that and was trying to make my own with some diagramming workbooks.  She likes Fix It and likes to work ahead with it, which is a win.

What is Teaching the Classics?  Is that just a teacher training course or is there a curriculum for teaching?

Edited February 5, 2021 by 4atHome

[Slache]

I did not. I had an advanced writer and started the theme books too young for SWI, now I don't feel the need. I might do it with him next year so I can concentrate on my 3rd grader. We'll see.

I like Fix It! because I never learned to diagram. I was in ESL language arts until high school.

Teaching The Classics is a teacher training course in literature.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

We went straight to the theme books, as well. I managed to grab ATFF & FMFT from the website for around 80% off just before the new program was released. We have no interest in video lessons, so SWI / SSS don’t really appeal, & while I wouldn’t mind TWSS for myself I found the program to be pretty straightforward. DS is only in 2nd & loves to participate in NaNoWriMo, so we have merged them & spread the material across two years. 

[kirstenhill]

I only did SWI A with one of my kids (oldest DS) before moving on to theme books. After watching the videos of that and listening to an "overview" lecture that was available for download on the IEW site, I felt confident to teach the theme books and jumped right into theme books with next DS without SWI.   DD only did theme books as we did different things when she was younger and her exposure to IEW was at an academic tutorial style co-op in middle school. 

You really don't need SWI - I think parents like it because if the video instruction and I'm sure it's a profitable product for them to sell (so it would make sense for them to encourage everyone to use it).  All IEW books follow the same basic pattern of instruction, just using different texts as the basis for the assignments. 

[Momto6inIN]

I highly recommend the teacher training videos. I did mine over the summer before trying to teach it since I had more time then, and it really has made me a better writing teacher.

We do theme books in 3rd - 5th. Then we do the SWI-B and SICC-B in 6th-8th (not sure what the new equivalent version is). Then we do EE, WttW, and Writing the Research Paper and they after that are ready for any type of university writing.

[Mona]

Years ago, they only had the teacher’s course, but many homeschool parents didn’t have time for that and asked if they would do the teaching, so the Student Writing Intensive courses came out. So, you can do the video courses for the kids or you can do the teacher course and teach it yourself. You don’t have to do both. Watching the teacher’s course does give you a better understanding of how the whole system goes together and you can then use your own models from your current books like your history or science book, but if you don’t have time to watch the DVDs, It’s okay. Set it aside. After you complete SWI-A, you can go with a theme book on your child’s level or go with the SWI-A Continuation Course, then SWI-B CC, etc. in order to cover all nine units.

I never did figure out how to use the binder 🤷‍♀️

 

[4atHome]

6 hours ago, Mona said:

I never did figure out how to use the binder 🤷‍♀️

 

So glad I'm not the only one!

 

[4atHome]

She likes the videos with Mr Pudewa.  It is the only video class we do and is nice she can do it independently while I practice music with my boys.  I like that he is a Suzuki teacher and my kids are Suzuki kids, so there is some common ground.  She would love the theme books though.  I'm rather torn on what to do.

ETA: also not sure what to do with my 9 yr old.  He is nearly done with WWE2, about 2 weeks to go.  Planned to continue with WWE 3 seems like so much more of the same.  I'm wondering if he should start with IEW.   He is not keen on writing. He is interested in the video class because it's s ok something different for exclusive to dd right now.  However, he cannot be trusted to do the work independently as she has been doing.  Hmmm.  Maybe the best course would be for me to do teaching course and then do theme books with both of them??

I'm rethinking everything for next year. 

Edited February 7, 2021 by 4atHome