Writing - Users answer questions

[MJ in IL]

how much writing there will be in CTG?

Can anyone tell me how much writing there will be in CTG?

We finished CtG this past fall with boys roughly those ages.

I used ILL and PLL with older son-at our co-op for writing for the fall semester. I used ILL / PLL with Writing Strands (very lightly) and my older son also did a literature course with some writing at our co-op for the Spring semester.

We also had quite a bit of writing for our notebook pages...summaries of the topic at hand and we tried to keep up with letters on Fridays. Other writing included copywork and dictation of the memory verses and I had the boys do simple science summaries for about 1/2 of their experiments.

I can't imagine adding in much more for my boys! Hope this helps!

[cbollin]

The year we did CTG I adjusted down a lot for my daughter (she was only 3rd grade and it was a hectic real life year for us). I wasn't good at having her write all that much and felt clueless about notebooking. I didn't do a good job with her writing skills that year. In fact, I try to avoid CTG questions. God provided a lot of things that year to get school done.

Just adding in a bit to what Molly said (and probably repeating a lot of it too)

There's the normal MFW writing that is part of the the unit studies:
*Bible Memory verse copywork/dictations
*There is the book English from the Roots Up – you can adjust how much the student writes with the vocabulary sentences (it's all explained better in the TM)
*Weekly letter writing beginning in week 7 (time to write letters to grandma, friends, etc. )
*History notebooking – I don't know how many times per week was average (blush), but sometimes it involved writing summaries and other times there were pages in the appendix.
*Science – you can do experiment summary sheets. (I was terrible about doing that)
*Music Appreciation Composers – some people like to have older children do a brief (2-3 sentences) on each composer

And then other writing would come from whatever language arts program
you do.

-crystal

[Julie in MN]

I'm looking to get a feel for the skills a child needs in order to be successful in Creation to the Greeks. I'm thinking specifically in terms of writing. If I had a clearer picture of what the expectation of the next level is, it would give me some benchmarks to be working toward over the next six months.

Thanks so much!
Tammy

Hi Tammy,
My son did CTG in 4th grade. His history notebook from that year is much thinner than his EX1850 one from 6th-7th grade.

Most of his notebook pages are summaries of major biblical figures or other major history topics. There is not a daily summary & I did not have him writing daily that year, even if you included his ILL and WS work. There is plenty of learning-by-doing, such as reenacting the 10 plagues & making a 10 commandments poster & experimenting to see how they moved huge pyramid stones. The feasts are very much experiential learning; I still remember him blowing our "shofar" (pop bottle) every morning, and gluing on a piece of barley for 50 days...

The nice thing about our having done CTG in 4th is that ds has had time to do the complete cycle, even though life got us behind there one year, and hopefully he will even get in some ECC again before high school.

Oh, and my ds was already typing his notebook pages in 4th, because he hates the pencil. That really helped him write more.

[HSmommi2mine]

I am doing R2R with kids in grades 2, 4/5 and 6. It isn't a matter of your child getting to the right level for the material, it is a matter of you assigning proper requirements for their level. The TM may say to have the kids do a notebook page about something but the specifics are up to me. There are often suggestions or a coloring page but ultimately I decide that the 6th grader has to type 3/4 of a page about the fall of Rome, the 4/5th grader needs to write a paragraph in cursive that goes along with his drawing and I will help the second grader write 2 good sentences to go along with her drawing.

I base these assignments on where they are in their LA work. D is learning to write longer paragraphs, J is working on proper paragraph format and writing a good sentence. A is still working on basic sentences.

[Jenn in NC]

Amount of writing in CTG for a reluctant writer?

When we did CTG, my dyslexic ds was 9 -- and really not doing much at all in writing. Almost nothing, really. Everything was oral, or he would dictate to me and I would write it for him, etc. BUT he still learned so much that year. I just had to tweak the writing requirements to fit his ability. Ok, maybe "tweak" is an understatement. But you know what I mean.

So -- just wanted to encourage you that much enjoyable learning will still happen. We loved CTG. Probably our favorite year so far.

[my3boys]

My ds has been a very reluctant writer. He just finished his fourth grade year with ECC. At the beginning of the year I didn't require him to write anything but his cursive lesson and spelling dictation - I scribed everything else for him. Once he picked up the cursive a bit I required him to write his dictation in cursive. By the end of the year he was wanting to take over the writing himself and was writing in cursive. This year with CtG he will be expected to do all his school work in cursive and I think he will do most of the writing, but I will still scribe for him when he wants me to. By sixth grade I will expect him to do all his writing himself.

[cbollin]

We did the first notebooking page in CtG last week on Adam and Eve. I gave my girls paper to work on a first draft, while I did phonics with ds. They were really into it, and one wrote 8 sentences and the other 12. I gave them lots of praise (didn't want to squelch the enthusiasm), we corrected a few small errors, and they put them back to back with the colored pictures. (They were too long to rewrite on the actual page.)

Can someone give me some pointers on the goals of these notebooking pages? I was thinking they were intended to be summaries of a just a few sentences. My plan is to work a little more closely with my girls next time to identify the key ideas, instead of rewriting the story. Am I on the right track? This is a new skill for my daughters (and me as the teacher).
Thanks,

I think what they did sounded nice.

I'm not sure on this, but I tend to use the written narrations/notebooking pages as a time to let the student write what they did learn about the topic or event or person. Sometimes it will be more of a retell the story, other times it is point out a key idea, or something big.

If they get into it and write as much as they did and you are getting the rest of the school day done too, don't worry about it. you did fine.

There were times last year my then 5th grader wrote a few sentences, and other times she wrote a lot on someone.

-crystal

[Kelly1730]

We just finished week 3 of CTG and the corresponding notebook pages. What we have been doing (not saying this is what you SHOULD do, just what WE have been doing;) is sort of collaborating on a summary of 2-3 sentences. I write it on the whiteboard and they copy it onto their notebook pages. We are using Writing with Ease 2 this year and it is really helping them to summarize information.

[TrustingHim]

RB-
Whenever we've done narrations, I've done what Kelly has done. Otherwise, my girls get too frustrated with the process. However, if your girls like writing, I don't see why they can't do what you did.

Blessings!
Dorinda

[TriciaMR]

I have been looking at the sample lessons for CTG and was wondering if there are any writing assignments other than copy work and dictation. I did not see any type of independent writing such as responding to questions or written summaries.

Notebooking pages are generally written summaries. If your child is in 4th grade, you should be doing Writing Strands or some other writing program at least twice a week. There will be writing opportunities in ILL/PLL or whatever English program you use as well.

-Trish

[cbollin]

some other writing opportunities in CTG:

the Science Lab write ups. There are lots of experiments in the elementary science in CTG. jr. high students have lots of science writing opportunities.

In English from the Roots up, there are some small writing assignments once a week that are not copywork.

Students in jr. high years also have the option to add in monthly history/Bible reports - either oral or written. They use the topics in the chapter beginnings of Streams of Civilization.

Most "responding to questions" comes in the form of Narration and dialogue after the readings. Perhaps the question is "does MFW provide specific questions to guide the conversations?" - not in CTG. Usually it is going to be basic Charlotte Mason narration (freestyle), and from answering the questions you have when you read the Old Testament.

and it could be that there wasn't a notebooking page on the sample week. Usually in CTG, notebooking pages were assigned after completion of a major person or event, and not assigned every reading.

-crystal