Teaching the Classics - watching DVDs together/scheduling?

[Hoggirl]

Is there some way to watch the DVDs and do the stories, poems, novels, etc. included/suggested in the workbook with my ds? I really prefer the "30 minutes per day," or "45 minutes per day" kind of system, but I am wondering if this program is conducive to that? Has anyone attempted this? I can't afford a big ol' block of time to do this seminar style without other things falling behind. Over the summer is not an option as dh doesn't allow ANY school over the summer.

TIA for any suggestions.

[Deece in MN]

I watched the DVD's on my own first to get a feel for the program. Then I made copies of the stories/poems for my dc to read through and copies of the story chart to fill in. Then we would watch Mr. Andrews read the story, pause the video and start filling in the chart. I would play the video to a point where he asks a question and then pause so we could discuss and answer it. Then I would play the video so we could listen to their answers.

So, the only part I had my dc watch was the actual reading and filling in/discussing of the story. It really doesn't take long and I would break it up over a couple days if it seemed to be taking longer than I wanted.

HTH

[Ali in OR]

I watched the DVD on my own last year. I then worked through Peter Rabbit with my girls (that's one of the ones on the DVD) because I need to learn how to do this! It was easier to start with one where the answers were "filled in" so to speak.

For this year, I am trying to do a story chart and discussion for one book per month. Most of the books will be picture books (doing this with a third grader and K tag-along), though we will also do Paul Revere's Ride (another on the DVD) because we're reading it for history this year anyway. Maybe we will watch the DVD together--my 3rd grader could probably follow it. For the other books, I am trying to focus on one idea for each book and cover that pretty well. For September, we did Ox-Cart Man and focused on setting. Setting was easy for them to grasp and this book also tied into our history studies well. I'm just using favorite picture books that we already own. We do the story chart and I'm learning to use some of the Socratic questions in the workbook for the area that we are focusing on.

I guess it's about time for me to choose October's book. One a month fits into our schedule. My girls are young enough that I'm just going for exposure to the ideas at this point. And we always enjoy reading a good picture book!

[Capt_Uhura]

I've asked this before so forgive me if you're one of the ones that answered but you seem knowledgeable about the dvds...can you do this effectively with only the syllabus? Are the books you've listed, discussed in the syllabus?

[Ali in OR]

I could not do this effectively with just the workbook, but there may be some people who can. If you have had high school teachers or college professors who conducted your classes in this way, you may be able to. The workbook has the list of Socratic questions to guide you. It even pulls out the pertinent questions for the example books discussed. But it doesn't have the answers or model the discussion the way that the DVD does. I needed to see it in action. In the DVD, Adam Andrews works through the examples with a seminar class. He will ask the questions that you see in the workbook, and then you will see different people offer different answers as to theme, the climax, etc. And he facilitates the discussion so that you see there is more than one way to answer the questions. The moment you decide is the climax of a story might be a little different than your neighbor's, especially if you each identified slightly different themes to the story. Anyway, I really needed the example of seeing this all played out. The workbook alone wouldn't teach me how to do this.

[Capt_Uhura]

THanks Ali in Or.