Classical it is! (pt. II)

Language Arts... What can I say? Wow! This area is just massive. As it is, in our nightly reading sessions we read an hour or two but apparently that is nowhere near sufficient. "Language Arts" includes such childhood favorites as Spelling! Grammar! Handwriting! What?! Won't these things stifle the creativity of my aspiring little writer? All right, seriously now: My aspiring little writer is rarely able to successfully end a sentence ("and, and, and...") His handwriting and spelling are laaaazzy ("I just need to get this thout down on paper- it doesnt mater if i use corect spelling and puncuasion! I have the squiggly line to tell me when im wrong!") I'm hardly any better, so I have purchased curricula to walk us both through these basic parts of language arts.

Once again, going with the SWB on a couple of my choices here:

1. Writing. There is a nifty little book called "Writing With Ease: The Complete Writer" that covers the first four years of writing preparedness. The whole WWE series includes workbooks for each individual year but I have decided to save the Earth by not purchasing four unnecessary books when I can develop my own program from "The Complete Writer" (translation: Yeah, I'm broke.) I haven't given El the "mastery evaluations" in this book yet, but I'm pretty confident he is going to test into the "Year 2" level.

2. Grammar and then some: First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, Level 3. (Okay, this isn't technically SWB, but it's her mom so... close enough.) I did go ahead and get the instructor's guide with this since it was really affordable and it walks you step-by-step through each lesson. This big workbook is such a great value at under $13 on Amazon. The workbook has a certain amount of review from Levels 1 & 2 so I'm hoping it won't be too difficult for El to go right into 3.

In the non-Peace Hill Press category of language arts curriculum, I'm going with Spelling Power for spelling (What? Did you see the price on that page? Yikes. No. I did not shell out $60+ for a spelling program, even if it is for several years. I found an ugly orange used 3rd ed. for a few dollars on eBay.) I love this program because the word lists are not really level-based, but rather frequency based. I also love that you pretest and then the child only works on the words that he or she missed on the pretest.

What else is there... oh, reading! Well, there is already so much reading material in this house that I can't imagine not having something to read. Additionally, we have Kindles (free downloads of most public-domain books) and live a couple of blocks from our local library. As for what to read, we will be drawing a little from our history program. We will also do some selections from the book-lists over at Ambleside covering years 1-3. I'm not really worried about forcing any reading. In fact, I need to go upstairs right now and tell them it's time to put the books down and go to sleep. :)

What are you reading, anyway?

El: Mooommmmm...
Yeah?
El: I can't sleep. I'm too afraid of all those preserved bodies in Pompeii.
Uh, Pompeii's like, on the other side of the world. If they frighten you, you can just choose to never go there I guess.
El: I know, but that doesn't help me right now.
?!?