4th grader writing??

[HollyDay]

We are going to finish Aesop B sooner than I thought. I dont want to do Homer A in 4th grade. What else should I consider???

[HollyDay]

Hello??? Anyone???

[Alana in Canada]

How about their poetry program?

I've heard good things about Writing Tales--but haven't done it. It may be more of the same?

[angela in ohio]

Heehee. I was going to answer you, just so you didn't feel alone, but my advice (switch to IEW!!) is no help for your question. :)

[ACinGA]

We are going to finish Aesop B before the end of this year (4th), too. I am planning on using the extra time to go through Logos' Poetry Primer http://www.logosschool.com/materials/shop/item.asp?itemid=30. We also need to work on writing letters and science reports since they usually get put off when we are working through CW.

-AC

[Shukhov]

I'm not a Aesop B user but I've looked at it (I teach directly out of the ancient progym texts, mainly Aphthonius and Hermogenes).

The fable exercise that has been most enjoyable for my students is to have them write out 2 or 3 unique morals for each fable they worked on. I also have them justify each one; you could play devil's advocate and challenge different aspects of each moral written.

Also, have you tried your hand at writing your own fables? Pick a historical situation or character, talk about certain virtues/vices/lessons of the situation, then come up with a fable together!

You could also try writing the fables in reverse order. In other words, the first thought would be the last action in the original fable, and so on. It's quite advanced, though, and the child may not be ready for it but you could tuck it away for a rainy day.

[Kate in Arabia]

We did Poetry A last year -- it is only a 12-week course. I haven't looked at Poetry B yet, although I bought it for use later this year, so I'm not sure whether it would be appropriate to do a whole year on poetry, but it seems like a lot to me especially if this is to be your main writing program.

We finished Aesop B last year with just the right amount of time to do Poetry A, and will be starting Homer A in a couple of weeks (starting 5th grade). Why don't you want to do Homer A in 4th grade, if your child is ready and able? If you were thinking to make it a sort of review/cementing-of-the-basics year, you could even go back through Aesop B again but use different models.

This is all assuming you want to stick with the same type of program. You could also switch to something completely different for the year. Over the summer ds worked on a writing workbook, I think it was Spectrum Writing? Very different and did give him exposure to writing letters, etc.

hth!

[Kate in Arabia]

We did Poetry A last year -- it is only a 12-week course. I haven't looked at Poetry B yet, although I bought it for use later this year, so I'm not sure whether it would be appropriate to do a whole year on poetry, but it seems like a lot to me especially if this is to be your main writing program.

We finished Aesop B last year with just the right amount of time to do Poetry A, and will be starting Homer A in a couple of weeks (starting 5th grade). Why don't you want to do Homer A in 4th grade, if your child is ready and able? If you were thinking to make it a sort of review/cementing-of-the-basics year, you could even go back through Aesop B again but use different models.

This is all assuming you want to stick with the same type of program. You could also switch to something completely different for the year. Over the summer ds worked on a writing workbook, I think it was Spectrum Writing? Very different and did give him exposure to writing letters, etc.

hth!

[Narrow Gate Academy]

I would suggest CW Poetry for Beginners as well. I'm hoping to do this with my 4th grader in the spring if we finish all of Aesop B. I have the books already and have glanced through them. I didn't think they looked too hard for her. HTH