S/O MCT. Their poetry program?

[MeaganS]

I'm considering doing the MCT poetry program with all my kids combined. Different ages. I'll probably start with the first one (Music of the Hemispheres). What would you recommend I buy? Do I just need the teacher's guide? Do I need a student book for each kid? How consumable/necessary are they.

ETA: I looked at the samples. It looks like everything in the Student book is also in the Teacher's book. So probably I can just do one teacher's manual and call it good if we're doing it in a group? Unless there's something I can't see in the sample.

Edited May 26, 2021 by MeaganS

[knitgrl]

You certainly don't need a separate book for each kid. I would say it's helpful for the kids to see how it's laid out, and would not be as effective if you just did it orally. From there, I think whether you buy just the TM or the TM+how many student books would be a matter of personal choice.

[Jackie]

DD and I curled up on the couch to do it, sharing the instructor book. They aren’t consumable, but it is good to be able to see it, as poetry can be visual. Maybe one book for every two kids to share to follow along?

[ktgrok]

Maybe get the ebook version, if there is one for that product, and cast it from your computer/tablet/whatever to the TV so everyone can see it?

[domestic_engineer]

52 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Maybe get the ebook version, if there is one for that product, and cast it from your computer/tablet/whatever to the TV so everyone can see it?

I do not like the iBook version of the poetry (maybe the kindle version will be different).  MCT uses letters as graphics and often spreads it across both the left and right pages.  The iBook version will only show 1 page at a time, and then you end up losing the power of the graphics.  it bothered me so much that I ended up buying a physical copy afterwards for my younger kids.  If you wanted to cast it to the TV, maybe take a landscape picture of the book lying open and then cast that picture.

(Note that there isn't currently an electronic version of the teacher's manual for the poetry books; it's complicated.)

[eternallytired]

I did it with all three kids, and we just snuggled on the couch or huddled around the TM on the kitchen table.  (They do a lot of pacing in circles while listening, so the kitchen table was great so they could do a walk-by glance every few seconds. 🙄)  I'm on a budget and I tend to tweak everything I use anyway, so I usually just get a TM for everything and have the kids write on notebook paper for any assignments I give.  I didn't think the student books for MCT had a whole lot of consumable pages (and I often adjust assignments to better suit us), so it seemed redundant to purchase separate books.

[The Governess]

I taught from the TM but typed up and printed out all of the poems on separate paper. I added blank lines somewhere on the page where they could write a reflection on how the poem made them feel or what was interesting to them. I also added a blank box where they could draw a picture of what they visualized when they read/heard the poem. At the end of they year we bound these, along with some poems they wrote themselves, trying some of the techniques in the book. 
 

We also kept notebooks where they  added definitions and examples for different terms/elements as they came up in the book. This was just a section in our language arts notebook.