Our Curriculum: Part 2 - Writing, Spelling and Grammar

Writing:

For writing, we'll continue with Writing With Ease ("WWE").  Level 3 for the boy and Level 1 for his sister.

When doing Level 2 with my son, I took a beautifully composed, cohesive program and completely mangled it.  You see, I had heard on-line complaints that the dictation exercises were just so hard.  Since All About Spelling ("AAS") contained dictation too, I decided to avoid the heart ache and skip the dictation sections for WWE and rely on AAS.

But then it slowly dawned on me that writing a simple sentence using a controlled set of words like, "The snake is in a coil" (an actual sentence from AAS Level 2) is a far cry from writing a dictated passage from WWE.  Here's a sample from that program:

Gold!  Gold!  It was almost as if someone had cried, "Fire!  Fire!"  Thousands of people rushed west to hunt for gold.

That's a whole 'nother ball game!  Both are useful exercises, but each has a different focus.

So, after going through the program sans dictation, we went back and added all those exercises interspersing with narration exercises from Story of the World.  The extra practice was good, but it sure took a long time to get through WWE Level 2.

I'm happy to have begun Level 3 and Level 1 for each child, respectively.  A fresh start is always good, and this time, there will be no shortcuts!

Spelling:

All About Spelling Level 3 and 4 for him and Levels 2 and 3 for her.

Grammar and Other:

Classical Conversations Cycle 2 memory work, which focuses on memorizing parts of speech and various definitions and lists for both.

Michael Clay Thomas' Island Level for grammar, poetry, vocabulary and extra writing for him.

Poetry memorization through the Institute for Excellence in Writing's Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization for both.  We've started the Level 2 poems.

All of these, except the Michael Clay Thomas ("MCT") series, are tried and true programs for us.  Not having taught these subjects prior to teaching my kids, I feel all of it is somewhat a roll of the dice, so I'm anxious to see how it all turns out.

See Part 1 here.