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Cheryl
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 9:18pm | IP Logged
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I'm into my second year of using CHC's spelling and grammar workbooks. This year, just like last year, I'm going through a workbooks doubting phase. It could be that I lack the discipline to stick with the plan at this time of year. But it may be that in the fall I like the security of the workbooks and as the year goes on I start thinking that there's got to be a better way.
The spring seems to bring on my attraction to the Charlotte Mason method. I was attracted to this method before I began homeschooling. I pull out my inspiring books, read the LA chapters and wonder if I could really pull it off. Will my dc learn to spell and write well and have good vocabularies without workbooks? Will I have time to work with each dc individually?
I recently read this in CHC's catalog:
One of the best allies of the homeschooling parent, and a key time-saver, is workbooks that are specifically designed for homeschool use.
Since my experience with LA has been basically helping my dc learn to read, I thought I ask you who have more experience...
What do think about workbooks?
Do any of you go without them for spelling and grammar?
What method of learning language arts has worked for your families?
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Cheryl
Wife to Bob ('97)
Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 9:30pm | IP Logged
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I think it is yes AND no. I think language arts can be accomplished either way, and neither way is wrong or right. Just depends on what works for your family.
Sounds like you have seasons to your schooling. Why not just roll with that? Do workbooks in the fall and use more CM methods in the spring?
I think we are more satisfied if we work with our natural rhythms rather than fight them.
We don't use them for lang arts, btw. But we do for math sometimes.
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Theresa
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Willa
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I use workbooks to focus on specific skills, to provide a scope and sequence I can use in my own way, and as fill-ins for subjects I don't want to spend a lot of time planning for at the moment, for whatever reason.
I also use them as simple diagnostics -- I can sit down with a workbook and a child and quickly find out what is easy for them and what is still unfamiliar.
Whenever I try to rely on them too much the children let me know -- they get turned off, or they don't really retain the material.
I don't use workbooks for spelling and I only use them a bit for grammar, and then often just as guides to discuss grammatical concepts.
I do use them for math, though that's not all they do for math.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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LLMom
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| Posted: April 22 2008 at 7:40am | IP Logged
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Cheryl,
I just read this by Julie from Bravewriter. SHe talks about how she starts with a curriculum in the fall, moves to CM in the winter and by spring is unschooling.
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Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
homeschooling ideas
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Cheryl
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| Posted: April 22 2008 at 6:25pm | IP Logged
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Thank you Theresa, Willa and Lisa for your replies. I'm thinking about next year and you've given me great food for thought.
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Cheryl
Wife to Bob ('97)
Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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Lisa R
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| Posted: April 23 2008 at 6:31pm | IP Logged
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Cheryl,
I've gone back and forth with this for the last 7 years of homeschooling with no real answer!  Looking at the number of people who have "looked" at this question, I'd say there are quite a few people who are interested in the answers too. 
I'm trying to decide what to do for next year myself. I've used a variety of things from just copywork to workbooks. I'm actually going to talk with my boys and ask them which they think has helped them and which one they have really learned from and retained the information. I'm hoping to have some answers.
I hope more people will respond to this question, too.
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Lisa, married to my best friend, Ray and loving my blessings Joshua (17)and Jacob(15), Hannah(7) and Rachel (5)!Holy Family Academy
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BrendaPeter
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Hi Cheryl,
We don't really use grammar workbooks as we learn quite a bit of grammar through the IEW writing course. My kids also learn a ton of grammar by learning Latin. I start them pretty early - 3rd grade - if they're ready. I'm big into "killing 2 birds with one stone" so I like to combine subjects as much as possible.
My thoughts on Grammar is that the kids will do an editing program like IEW's Fix-It (which is pretty challenging) in the late middle school & early high school years. They'll also do a diagramming workbook in early high school.
Now that I'm learning about Montessori, I think I'll do a little more with grammar (using the shapes) in the early years with some Mad Libs thrown in!
HTH!
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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BrendaPeter
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| Posted: April 24 2008 at 7:15am | IP Logged
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I forgot to mention that I find the Ruth Heller & Brian Cleary books to be great for reinforcement.
Personally, I'm a big workbook fan as I like to see everything laid out & a get a better sense of scope & sequence, as Willa mentioned. We've run into trouble when I let the kids do too much independent workbook work as it quickly becomes "bucket-filling" and the retention just isn't there. When I sit with them and we discuss it a little, things go much better.
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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Lisa R
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| Posted: April 24 2008 at 4:36pm | IP Logged
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Well, after talking to my boys we've come up with almost an identical plan as Brenda! 
We've done Latin for the past 4 years and we get LOTS of grammar from that. Next year we will continue with Latina Christiana II. 
We will be going back to IEW writing. Both boys told me they learned so much in writing and grammar from those courses. The fact that so much grammar was included with the writing was the original draw to IEW for me. We use the History Based Lesson plans that IEW sells. It has been so much easier for me to teach with everything laid out for me. 
We also started IEW's Fix-It program this year which is an editing program and that has shown some good fruit.
We will be finishing Winston Grammar Basic in 5 weeks and they both said they really liked that program and have retained the knowledge. I'll probably have them do Winston's Word Works as well.
So, after talking with my boys and discussing this at length with my dh, that is our plan and I'm sticking to it. I'll be repeating this to myself often! 
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Lisa, married to my best friend, Ray and loving my blessings Joshua (17)and Jacob(15), Hannah(7) and Rachel (5)!Holy Family Academy
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BrendaPeter
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| Posted: April 24 2008 at 5:17pm | IP Logged
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Wow, Lisa, that sounds great!
I discovered IEW pretty late in the game, unfortunately, but I'm so glad I did. The cost really stopped me but when I realized what it actually was then it was a deal!
We've been very happy with Memoria Press' online Latin classes.
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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Lisa R
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Thanks, Brenda. I think for the first time ever I'm feeling really good about our choices!
Cheryl,
I forgot to add that we tried a spelling workbook one year for our boys (CHC), Spelling Power another year and for us it was absolutely pointless. Zero retention after the test on Friday.
I hope you find what will work for your family. There are simply too many choices out there!
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Lisa, married to my best friend, Ray and loving my blessings Joshua (17)and Jacob(15), Hannah(7) and Rachel (5)!Holy Family Academy
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Genevieve
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Cheryl,
I'm pondering these same questions lately and I think I'm going to try to only have a math workbook for one year. The rest I'm going to test out a combination of Ambleside Online LA sequence and Bravewriter lifestyle. Perhaps AO for fall and BW for winter. As for spring... it depends.  I know your children are older. In my case, I figured even if this experiment "fails", no harm done because I have plenty of time to make up for it. So when I pull out our CHC lesson plans and it says Language Arts, I'll just plug in copywork and narration. In contrast, I worry that by not doing the CHC workbooks that I would miss out on the Catholic culture. I do think there is a season for workbooks. It was for me this year. Next year, it might not be the case, but then again I'm going to have twin newborns. Either way, I try not to think that it's an all-or-nothing scenario. I can always change things if it doesn't work out.
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JuliaT
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I am of the same opinion as Theresa. I think it depends on the child. I, personally, despise workbooks. If I can get away with not using them, I will do it. This works for my dd. We use copywork and dictation for writing and spelling. For grammar, we are using FLL 3. I bought the workbook, just in case, but we could have done it without it.
Now, my ds loves workbooks. He does well with them, so I am using them for him. We use ETC for phonics and we just started Spelling Workout. I think SWO is pure busy work, but my ds enjoys it so I continue on.
I think one of the downsides of workbooks is that some of them can be busywork. I don't see the point of that. The only workbooks, so far, that I have seen that are not busywork (imo) are Vocabu-Lit and ETC.
Blessings,
Julia
mom of 3 (8,7,5)
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Kristie 4
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I am also a workbook despiser. However, I know my kids sometimes like them as there seems to be that definite ending point- the page is the page and won't turn into something longer, which they like at times.
We use the italics workbooks, well my boys do. The youngers really like them and my older really benefits from a couple lines a day.
We also enjoyed the Latina Christiana workbooks last year. It was just so much less work to reinvent the wheel with something I knew so little about. Doing Henle this year I actually sat down and made a workbook for a couple months work as my kids liked that format for it and it allowed me to put the grammar etc. right in there (although my spell check kept correcting my latin which we didn't realise until after!)
For Math we have used a workbook. For me I like to rely on living books, and lots of them for all of lit, history, science etc. so it gives me more time to do that.
Good topic...
Oh, and I found the ETC helpful with some of my later bloomers and found them to not be busy work.
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Tina P.
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| Posted: May 05 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged
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LLMom wrote:
Cheryl,
I just read this by Julie from Bravewriter. SHe talks about how she starts with a curriculum in the fall, moves to CM in the winter and by spring is unschooling. |
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This is me to a T! Classical ~> CM ~> Unschool. I even go so far as to do classical in the morning and progress to unschooling in the afternoon.
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Tina, wife to one and mom to 9 + 3 in heaven
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Cay Gibson
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There is no shame in using workbooks.
We use them (Seton/CHC) during our morning school hours. They are the discipline I want my children to know if they ever have a desk job.
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Cay Gibson
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TracyQ
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I agree, Cay. I think in order to get the basics done, we've often used workbooks when necessary. Creating the balance in our homeschool is something I've always tried to do. I think they know all ways of learning in some fashion or another. 
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Tracy Q.
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10 Bright Stars
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How funny that this topic should come up since I was just thinking about workbooks and a drrawback they seem to have these past several days.
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LLR4
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My kids enjoy their workbooks as part of their schooling. My 3 kindergarteners use the Horizons curriculum, and my 5th grader uses LifePac for math and language, which are 10 floppy workbooks per year.
I am new to this forum, and trying to get the curriculm abbreviations. Can someone tell me what these stand for, for starters?:
CHC
IEW
SWO
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Bookswithtea
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I think they have their place in a busy homeschool. They are more problematic when a child has too many, imho. We always have a MUS workbook (I don't do out of the box math well) per student, and sometimes one more, depending on the grade level. Sometimes they just "do the trick" in a time effective way. And the CM method is teacher intensive. I'd rather save the CM methods for the bigger subjects and rely on a workbook for grammar reinforcement, for example. If using a workbook helps me to stay within CM's short lessons and lots of tree climbing, its serving a higher purpose.
.02
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: workbooks: yes or no?
