Would CW Homer A/Beginning Poetry AND LLATL Purple be too much?

[Tree House Academy]

I really like CW Homer and I want to do it in conjunction with Beginning Poetry as well. However, I also like LLATL - particularly the book study sections, but also speech writing and so on. Do you think I can make this work (I have an English degree and I am definitely not afraid to cut anything that is repetitive or overload for him) or is it just going to be too much?

 

My son is a struggling writer and we are not starting CW until we finish WT II later this year. He has come a long way and has a long way to go.

[PeterPan]

Well is there time in your day for that? Homer takes longer per day than WT2, at least it will for us. I've been pouring over it, working on our schedule for January, and I finally realized that it just wasn't going to work to do the BJU Reading on top of CW Homer on top of history notebooking and other writing. Not at this age (9). The skills in Homer are accessible, but there's a limit on how much work the kids can do, kwim? So I'm thinking we finish the BJU Reading, finish the Wordsmith Apprentice we started, then move into CW Homer.

 

I don't know, maybe that's overly cautious. However I do see you're doing multiple spelling programs, meaning you're already spending a lot of time on LA using the other things you're doing. Would increasing that time take it over the top and make it too much? That's how you could decide. It was when I sat down with my schedule and got to the nitty gritty that I finally saw this.

 

BTW, since you said he's a struggling writer, have you looked at WA? My dd REALLY likes it. It's a good transition from WT2. About the same level conceptually, but moving forward into non-fiction, very high interest level, whitty.

Edited December 30, 2008 by OhElizabeth

[chai]

I agree. It really comes down to how much time you want to spend on Language Arts each day. We've been doing Homer and Lightning Lit. I love Homer--I see dd really maturing in this area--but we really need 90 minutes a day to complete that with Harvey's grammar. I've ended up doing Lightning Lit on light days and dd reads on her own time. Spelling lessons have been sporadic too. I haven't done any of the LL writing assignments because it does seem to be too much. We are starting our Poetry session now. The CW poetry study is so comprehensive that I am not finding a need for the LL poetry section which is much lighter.

[Tree House Academy]

It definitely could be too much....but scheduling could be key there. Right now, we are doing two spelling programs (really, they take only about 20 minutes of his day total) and WTII, LLATL Orange, AND GWG 4! So we are already packing it in. However, I schedule it to break it all up. We do LLATL and WTII daily, but if there is writing in each for the day, I pick one and have him either skip the other or do it a different day. Neither of them are terribly writing intensive, at last not yet. GWG, I schedule it 2 times a week and alternate it and a Steck-Vaughn book called "Vocabulary Connections." I have seen a lot of improvements in him since we started. English was his weakness and it has always been my strength. He is a natural math student and loves Science and History, so LA is definitely where he needs the most work.