This will be our second year using CW Aesop. Last year I purchased and used the instructor's guide and the student workbook with Jessie. It worked OK for us, but I often simply pulled out the student book to just wing it rather than taking the time for preparation. While we did make some progress, I just felt like I wasn't using the program to its fullest extent without taking time to set goals each week and then follow through with them. It felt some days like we were just writing for the sake of writing. The other issue I had last year was that Jessie never wanted to just rewrite a portion of the model. She always asked to rewrite the whole story. That made for some very long writing days when the student manual switched from fables to longer legends and fairy tales. We stretched a couple of the models over 2 weeks and ended up not finishing the whole student workbook before we stopped for the year.
This year I decided to go with just the core manual and make my own lesson plans. The appendix of the core has a sample 36 week schedule with suggested models. I made a list of all the suggested models that we didn't use last year. For the fables, I substituted and added a few titles to the list before typing up the models from the Aesop book that we own. For the legends, I stuck with the suggested list and printed the models from mainlesson.com. For the fairy tales, I found a few online and typed up a couple from library books when I didn't care for the online versions. Next I took each type of story and arranged all the models in order based on its length. Then I went through each model underlining vocabulary words. In typing the lesson plan, I've allowed an additional week for longer models and filled in a tentative schedule for discussing grammar topics. There is also plenty of room for me to make notes both when I first look over the lesson for the week and after I read Jessie's first draft. Here's a look at one of my planning pages.
For fables this year, we will be using The Goose with the Golden Eggs, The Fox and the Grapes, The Milkmaid and Her Pail, The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, The Boy Bathing, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Eagle and the Fox, The Cock and the Fox, The Lark and Her Young Ones, and Mercury and the Woodman. For legends, the list includes King Alfred and the Cakes, King Canute on the Seashore, Bruce and the Spider, The Story of William Tell, The Sons of William the Conqueror, and The Story of Robin Hood. The final story will be spread over two weeks. For fairy tales, I have chosen Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Gingerbread Man. All but the first two in this section will be spread out over two weeks because of there length. The results should be 21 stories written over the course of 26 weeks leaving us time to either add more models if needed or move onto the Beginner's Poetry book.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
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