CW with multiple children

[Lana]

I have four children aged 9, 7, 5, and 2. I am trying to forsee how it might work to teach different levels of CW simultaneously. With other subjects, I am expecting my older children to become more independent as they mature, so that I can work more intensively with the younger two. Can CW work like this, too?

Thanks!
Lana

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

CW pretty much tries to be as flexible as possible. That is why we choose a model of literature, like a fable or a fairy tale. Each student can study spelling at his own level or rewrite the story to the best of his ability, adding more or less detail and flaire in his writing.

In my experiece, any child can work independetly so long as we set the level at which he works at the right level. It IS possible to let olders work independently while teaching the younger students more. What CW does is have a big session with all the kids where you start at the level of the younger students and gradually include stuff to challenge the older students too. It works really well. The younger students pick up "older" stuff too AND remarkably well at that.

I would not say that my older students are super independent, but I think that is because I tend to challenge them with rather hard materials. If they were to work more alone I'd have to scale down on the complexity and difficulty. This you can do with any curriculum.

But the bottom line is that we wrote this with multiple ages in mind. Both of us have 4 children borh in a 6 - 8 year span, so we both are familiar with the need to lump teaching sessions together.

HTH, Lene

[Lana]

Thanks! I'm putting Aesop on my list of curricula to purchase. Now I'm just waiting on the IRS.

Lana