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Elizabeth
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 8:23am | IP Logged
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Marilyn,
For writing composition at that age, I use lots of dictated narrations. We do a Bible storybook that the child dictates and illustrates herself. No grammar. My children all begin to write on their own. They ask for me to spell words and they use invented spelling and I encourage both.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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MarilynW
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 8:30am | IP Logged
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Elizabeth wrote:
Marilyn,
For writing composition at that age, I use lots of dictated narrations. We do a Bible storybook that the child dictates and illustrates herself. No grammar. My children all begin to write on their own. They ask for me to spell words and they use invented spelling and I encourage both. |
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Thanks Elizabeth - we were planning to do this from MODG. But do you teach any formal phonics/learn to read. Matthew has a good grasp of his letters and sounds - I don't care for Teach Your Child.. even though I used this for some of the others. Or is just reading aloud and narrating enough at this age - he just loves books and would be happy to be read aloud to all day.
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Marilyn
Blessed with 6 gifts from God
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JennGM
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 8:49am | IP Logged
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Elizabeth wrote:
Jenn,
If you wanted to, you could use CHC reading and writing. Katie and Nicholas have both liked it fine. I end up paring together my own reading and writing but there was certainly nothing objectionable about CHC's. And my sense is that Gregory will read easily. |
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Yes, he is on the brink of reading -- already can spell and pick out words and has now enthusiastically writing. I know he likes a few "workbooky" pages to feel like it's school. I was leaning toward Handwriting Without Tears because he was so loath to writing and has grip problems, but.... I'm so wishy-washy. I thank you time4Tea for letting me hijack this thread, and thank you ladies in this thread and others that are helping this very intimidated K Mom make some decisions.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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MarilynW
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 8:57am | IP Logged
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Jenn - we did the HWT K book this year - Matt has always loved writing - and he really enjoyed it.
Off the check the CHC reading and writing - like I really need another choice in life!!
I am so wanting to do some Montessori type activities too...
You would think that with child #4 I would be able to do this without stressing- but believe it or not - all have learned to read using different programs, and all have needed different approaches...
I also need to have some workbooks - for those moments that I really need to be focussing on somone else and he wants his "work"
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Willa
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 9:56am | IP Logged
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Lisbet wrote:
Okay, personally, I think it is easy to pour in a little of each, stir gently, bake up a great curriculum. 
CHC offers gentle workbooks for the times when it may be to noisey to read aloud for long stretches or if mom is too tired to stay awake for long stretches  .
MA offers the fluid, relaxed, and intimate read alouds, narrations and such for the more easy going times. |
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I think they work together too. I like simplicity for the 3Rs, and lots of exploration and breadth for the "living" subjects. I usually pick a few structured resources as "spine" for the 3Rs (some years I used CHC, mostly now I have my own tried and trues) and then play with all the "other" stuff, using a combination of MA and Ambleside -- but the MA overview if you know what I mean, even if I substitute books from other sources.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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LisaD
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| Posted: May 27 2008 at 12:58pm | IP Logged
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These are wonderful planners! My daughter used these in our parish school for 2nd and 3rd grade. I think I will order them for my daughter and son to use next year, even though we will be learning at home 
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Mama to dd(99), ds(01), ds(03) and ds(06)
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ALmom
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| Posted: May 27 2008 at 7:05pm | IP Logged
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Well, I have never used MA. Didn't know it existed until last year. I will ditto what Elizabeth said about CHC read alouds. The suggestions for read alouds are always sweet but often stuff we've already done a while back and not nearly enough to keep my dc happy. I need more specific suggestions in the science and history department as well. We've done CHC with loads of baskets of books in various subject areas - and picture books and tweaking. My children are never in the same place in different subjects - so my dc finished the reading program long before we finished anything else. We also skip the F & L workbook and use that spot for either going forward or doing a project or making a visit or... We just went to 2nd grade at some point and did first and half of second this year. (He is an older 1st grader since I started him late so that isn't any kind of wow thing or anything just us delaying formal education as long as possible).
I'm thinking I could use either CHC or MA as a base and tweak it with the other. Since I already have 3rd grade CHC that will probably be what I do this year for this grade. I might (really am leaning towards it) go MA for K since I could get the books for the price of CHC plans and my child is not ready to learn how to read yet in any kind of intense way.
What reading program are you most familiar with and have you already worked with and liked? Regardless of what MA or CHC says, I'd do/continue with that. Same with math. I will say that I enjoyed using CHC reading as it was very simple, very inexpensive and started out without tons of busy words on the page (something that allowed my dc to actually succeed). I'm supplementing with a little more phonics now that he is reading really well and that seems to be Ok but this is not a CHC thing. I do like the way the faith is woven into everything with CHC and my dc really do respond to that and develop a simple and sweet dependence and trust in God. It just all seems to be phrased in such a way that it reaches us at the concrete level and every time I work with my dc, I'm learning something new about the faith too - even at the K level. I think that is one reason that even though I tweak quite heavily, I really do like them and seem to always go back and order. I guess from the outside, it would look like I'm ordering a very expensive plan/idea book. They also have memory quotes in the plan. These are extremely short and have been a good way to do some memorization without it ever feeling burdensome to us the way trying to do the memory with MODG did - (my dc just did not take to this naturally so a slower and very, very gentle approach really did make a difference). I simply laminated the quotes onto a colored index card and we pin it up on the bulletin board until it is memorized. Every single thing is reinforcement of character or faith though all are not overtly religious and many are short poems.
I like the reminders to do things I tend to forget (because I'm not good at them - like art and music) but both have reminders - I probably need something pretty laid out for this or I won't do it. I like that CHC is all hole punched and pre-printed and I just put it in a 3 ring binder - but I always cross out and scrawl through so I'm not sure it really makes much difference. Art, music, etc are also on the bottom of the plan so if days are really stressed, this gets shifted. I guess this is nice in one way - but also unfortunate for me as my dc are all late bloomers and that means we miss out on a lot of beauty in the early years that we should not. It is considered extra in CHC but essential in MA. For most it would probably just be a reassurance that we missed this this week and we'll get to it next. For us, we tended not to get to it. I added in a lot of this kind of thing in my Montessori environment so it wasn't always forgotten.
With MA, if there are some sort of preformatted days that I can fill in with my own books, etc. then I'd simply print a bunch of these, punch them with a hole punch and put them in a 3 ring binder using some sort of artwork my child did for the front pocket. I could fill them in with the plans for the year in the basics that I know - ie which books we'd read, what we'd narrate, sacramental or feast day stuff, etc. and leave lots of room to fill in more specifics in other areas - but be able to write down just enough so I don't slight an area.
My biggest thing is that I cannot function without specific plans that tell me what to do when and where or during the school year I am a person without a brain and we are all stressed.
I must say, though, that I never follow CHC exactly or really even all that closely but somehow I'm still glad I have it  . Maybe it is a rather expensive lesson planner/idea book for me. I basically cross out what we don't do - and check off the categories when we do them. I do use some of their grammar books, and the supplements. I also do read aloud from the stories they recommend like Devotional Stories, etc. Some of the stories are more relevant to girls than to boys (the ones with the Sacraments) and though my current boy doing it is fine with it some of my others might have been a bit adament about it and would have really balked at a story about a girl tempted to take a dolls red dress. The stories do, however, illustrate the points about confession in very real, concrete terms and I love them.(CHC wasn't around for my oldest when they were young so I didn't use it with them).
I now have a 5 yo boy and though he isn't school age and I'm not keen on doing seatwork and he shows no interest in learning to read yet, I'm still thinking he would like "school" of sorts. MA really looks like a good possibility for him. I'm very seriously considering some sort of loose plans following MA for him. Still have to have the discussion with dh so I am, like you, all up in the air with a thousand choices and no clear idea yet what we are doing except that some things have to change. I love that they tell you exactly what to do in science and we might actually accomplish something here with MA. I'm a bit concerned about handling all the different levels as none of my children really can work together on the same stuff in a formal way and I've never been good at combining children.
That is a plus with CHC. The workbooks do basically cover the same concepts in the same order so if your 1 grader is studying nouns, so is your 4th grader - just a bit more advanced. You have a separate workbook for each.
I've always just had piles of books we've read in rather haphazard ways. I was looking at MA at the end of this year when I realized I have a 3rd grader who is reading really, really well and I need other things for him to read. I'm really glad I found MA and am quite impressed. I am a plan person so I hadn't really realized that there is quite a lot of support here. I know I won't be going on any other boards or such but I am curious about those who have used MA in elementary. I'm very, very intrigued. I was quite impressed by my cursory review and printed everything out to discuss with dh. I already have CHC so I'm not likely to ditch it and funds will be quite limited this year (both our cars are dying slowly and will need to be replaced this year - they have both died on us on the highway between cities and we want dd to have some sort of reliable transport to take to college with her so she can get supplemental lessons somewhere and hope of spiritual support which looks like is all at least 1 hour drive!)so I am probably going to use what I already have with as many resources from MA as we can afford. I really liked the option of a more gentle lead into schooly stuff and it may be the solution for my state requirements vs eye skills problem. It is very likely to be what we do with our K.
My biggest concern is that I don't want to have to do any correcting of Protestant theology in material which seems to have to take place in the upper level history if I base this on what I've heard on the boards. How much adjusting do you have to do with the history spine recommendations? I guess I do tend to be very picky on this one. Not likely to be a problem in younger grades though.
For handwriting and grip problems, we happened into the best possible solution for us. We went wild with insets last year and my 11 yo and 8 yo spent hour upon hour with those things. Now it doesn't matter what handwriting program I use as long as the print isn't too small (which so far has precluded CHC handwriting). So if you know you have a handwriting grip difficulty and you are pulled to Montessori - my suggestion is to be sure to do some sort of insets and art. I really was hoping this would help, but was pleasantly surprised at just how much it helped!!!
Janet
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blairb4
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| Posted: May 27 2008 at 10:53pm | IP Logged
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I'm really enjoying this thread since my oldest will be officially K age this fall and I'm spending hours looking over all the choices! This year we did a relaxed MODG K program, but I too am not fond of all the book choices. I seem to prefer some of the choices of St. Thomas Aquinas Academy (another classical curriculum) as well as CHC. But I'm not sure about investing in the lesson plans when I know I will change them up so much! I just spent a moment looking at the MA list, but honestly I am a very visual person and need an organized and visually attractive program to follow...another plus for the CHC program for me! I'll continue to read with interest and change my Amazon shopping cart over and over again...
Blair in TX
Wife of Steven (since '01), Mommy to Mary Clare ('03), Elizabeth ('05) and Steven Joseph Jr ('07)
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: CHC or Mater Amabilis?
