What do you do when you really like a curriculum but never seem to get to it?

[JudoMom]

I love Classical Writing. But it is so time consuming we haven't gotten to it at all this year. It was ds8's favorite thing last year. I had planned on continuing with ds8 & starting with ds7.

But we never seem to have time to get to it.

We're doing Latin for Children A, and I'm almost sold on a LCC. But the small part that's not sold found comfort that CW would fill in the English Grammar Gap.

I'm starting to wonder if I should just give up on it until next year. Should I worry about a void if this is the case? Or should I just not worry about English grammar at all until next year? To have guilt or not to have guilt, that is the question...

[Rich with Kids]

I just couldn't teach it. For me, it was the grammar. I realized we needed to have a more solid grammar program that started from the beginning. So, I've switched to AG and Apologia's Jump In for now. I hope to return to CW after completing those.

[Patty Joanna]

Hi, JudoMom: Two things I will say, which means it will turn into three.

First, I KNOW they say that you can start kids ages 8 and under with CW. That was not true for me, and it is not necessary in my opinion. We used R&S grammar (not the writing) for grade 3, using R&S 4 for that, and it was GREAT and a wonderful foundation for CW. We started CW in 5th, and gave up--attitude, not anything to do with the curriculum--then again in 6th, and made some progress, by analyzing 2 stories but writing only one every two weeks. I used a spelling list from the SAT Spelling Words List, by the way, for spelling. So not so completely integrated. However we still ran up against attitude problems, so this year....
I farmed it out. And it is working great.

Second, when you really really believe something is important, but you don't get to it, you can do one of two things--you can figure out if it is really important (and if it is), then do the second of the two things: do that thing first thing in the morning. But in a way that works for you--like what we did by analyzing 2 stories but writing only one. Writing 2 would have killed me.

I hope that helps.