Tuesday, January 17, 2012

In praise of classical writing

I don't usually get into the minutia of curriculum here (but why not! It is listed on the side as topics I might discuss). For one thing, I don't want to bore everyone. And for another, in many ways, it doesn't entirely matter at this level of the game. As long as you do everything every day, one set of materials is probably as good as another. However, I just want to sing the praises of Classical Writing for a minute.

The very first thing is that their materials are really well made and lovely to work with. Alouicious' primer books are well laid out and easy to follow. They encompass reading good and worthy short stories to narrate and draw, beautiful art to copy and write about, nature study, copy work, and a little bit of light grammar and spelling (to supplement what we're already doing). There are three primers for the year and we are happily moving into the second one with joy and delight. Alouicious, who wines about everything, saves it for last because he likes it best.

Elphine is under the mistaken impression, right now, that she hates writing. But that is just because she is trying to be a diva and will soon, I hope, leave that ridiculousness behind. She is in the Aesop book and does about two thirds of the work in each week. The other third we abandon for other kinds of writing, mainly science and geography research and writing. Her book is also laid out well and there is plenty of room to analyze and pull apart the text at hand, write it, and then write it again.

I particularly like that both books are laid out by day and week. You can open it up to the day you're on and start working. It is helped us to keep on track and remember to do it.
And now, once more, into the breach!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

nature and animal life can be seen on www,bear.org. they have a live cam on a den where a female bear is expected to give birth in a few days. they also have an education program on bears that quite a few schools in usa are using as part of their curriculum
art

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this. I've been wondering how I might streamline the prep time for a few of the things I put together myself for next year. This might be it. =)

Anonymous said...

Do you all still do CC? Do you do this along side? Also trying to make some changes for next year...this is our 4th yr with CC. Would love some opinions from you since I know you have tried different varieties within the classical model.
Thanks so much,
Laura from FL

Anne said...

Thanks Art! We will check it out this afternoon.
Hi Laura, we aren't doing CC any more. Last year we were involved with a small part time school and this year I wanted to spend as much time working at home as possible. We aren't in any kind of co-op. I wanted more time to actually work. CC was essentially a lost day because we never finished the work we should have been doing when we got home. Plus because we live next to the church we are fairly drowning in social activity. The discipline we gained last year is helping a whole lot!