If I have any other Michael Clay Thompson curriculetes* out there reading my blog, your input on this would be most welcome.
Tomorrow, I’m planning to get Captain Science rolling on his new MCT language arts curriculum. We have the whole Town level at our disposal, so any topic staging I do won’t have to revolve around the ordering of and waiting for books to arrive.
The recommended order of events seems to be:
- Start the four-part grammar text (Grammar Town).
- Halfway through grammar text, start the Latin-based vocabulary (Caesar’s English I).
- Upon completion of the grammar text, begin writing (Paragraph Town), poetry (Building Poems), and practice workbook (Practice Town).
- Upon completion of writing/poetry texts, start next level of grammar text (Grammar Voyage).
Is my understanding of the recommended order of text introduction (per this elemetary curriculum guide) correct?
Because Captain Science has such a good foundation of grammar already, I am considering starting him with the Latin-based vocabulary at the same time as the grammar, then alternating writing and poetry once the grammar is completing. I don’t forsee completion of Grammar Town taking any great length of time. Any strong recommendations for or against these plans?
I suppose I could just scatter the books around on the floor and let Captain Science chicken-peck at them at his own pace, but I guess I’m just the conventional type.
*There is something practically athletic about developing rigorous curricula for our classically educated children, isn’t there? I suppose we could also be curriculists or curriculeers, but that’s not nearly so awe-inspiring.
What I wish I had done: started poetry & grammar at the same time. There’s a lot in the vocabulary and writing that pulls in some of the poetry concepts. I don’t know if it’s the same at the Town level but I suspect it is. Then I would have started vocabulary and practice once grammar was finished, and writing once poetry was finished. Of course, I didn’t have the ability to realize this until I got the poetry book and really had time to look it at it (aka, this weekend), well after I started grammar and vocabulary, and a bit after we started practice.
OK, that’s good to know. I was feeling antsy about not starting the writing away, so this will calm that need a bit.