Language Lessons

Last year, we switched our Language Arts curriculum to Language Lessons for the Very Young, and I couldn't be happier with it.  Hypatia is doing the Language Lessons for Little Ones, while Carbon is doing for the Very Young, and both kids love many aspects of their program.  (Both are working "below grade level" since I chose these levels for them, but I am not concerned with speeding ahead, but rather laying a solid foundation at a loving pace.)

Hypatia especially loves her lessons, and it is the Creative Expression and Narration lessons that are her favorites.  A typical lesson would be to have a poem for the parent to read out loud, and then some narration or discussion prompts related to the subject matter of the poem.  Then the next day's lesson would be to draw a picture of the subject matter of the poem, and to make up your own story to go with your picture.

She can go on and on and on and on, telling me a story about a Bat, in a tree, in a garden that a Little Girl lives in.  And the Bat falls out of the tree, but the Moon Spirit sees it and calls the Little Girl ...

I usually have to just say "time is up now", or it would go on forever. :)
The lessons are super short, and we typically do more than one lesson on the days we do Language Lessons (but we only do it 3 days a week, so it evens out).

It's not a secular program, but I have found (so far) that the religious studies that are woven in are so light and gentle that I have no objection to them.  Art study that includes Biblical subject matter - well that's a whole lot of the history of art, isn't it?  Getting out the Bible and reading a passage that relates to that picture?  Well, yes, that would be how we would understand what that picture is about ....

And so I'm very happy with what we are doing for Language Arts.  (We are also reading Literature as a family, doing Independent Reading, and doing Explode the Code for spelling, phonics, and handwriting.  And I've just ordered Writing Strands for Carbon, and am excited to see how that goes.)