Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 1 month ago by jeaninpa.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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April 17, 2015 at 11:57 pm
Rebekah
Participant
has anyone used this? I had been thinking of using English lessons through literature next year. Then I was gifted a complete set of LLATL. Looking it over, I like the way grammar is taught and there is some nice variety to the lessons which makes it seem kid friendly. I have the old spiral bound red through gray And the newer version red through gray plus one of the gold books, American lit.
April 18, 2015 at 6:18 am
2Corin57
Participant
We tried it for my son who was 7/grade 2. I too, loved the look of it, the idea of it – and then HATED it once we were using it. For starters, many of the lessons are LONG. Far longer than what CM recommends. It could take us up to 45+ minutes just for that one lesson, never under 20-30 minutes. So we often had to try and split the lesson up, but then it was going to take forever to get through a book. Also, there is a LOT of busy work in the red book. A lot of cutting/pasting activities. If your child likes them, that’s great – but they are also in part what makes the lessons so long, and both my son and I, get tired of busywork. Also, it is a very, very spiral approach – like extremely spiral. So, if your child does well with spiral learning that’s good, but if not, then, this may not be the program for you. In the end I was really disappointed. I wanted to love it. The literature looked great, the idea seemed great, and my son did love the readers in Red Level. But, we ended up ditching it.
April 18, 2015 at 7:35 am
Monica
Participant
We didn’t really have a good experience with it. It may have been different if my son liked writing, but he did not, and the workbook was torture for him. I think he was in grade 5 at the time that we tried it.
I think my girls. who think workbooks are fun, wouldn’t mind it so much.
April 18, 2015 at 9:43 am
HollyS
Participant
We switched to LLATL this year for a few reasons. I’m using the red, orange, and tan levels. I like that it’s open and go. For the most part, I like the exercises. Overall I’m happy with the orange and tan levels. I don’t find the lessons take very long, but I tend to drop “busywork” activities (or have them complete it on their own if they wish).
The red hasn’t been my favorite because I don’t think there is enough reading practice or copywork for 2nd grade. The grammar and spelling are pretty light (which I prefer at that age). There are discussion questions for the readings, but you can easily replace this with dictation. There are several cut and paste activities, but we often discuss these since cutting and pasting take quite a bit of time. She does some of the more fun looking cut/paste pages, but many have her cut out words and sort them, then glue them onto a page. Sometimes I cut them for her and sometimes we simply discuss the words.
The orange level has had several fun CM-friendly projects. DS made a map of his bedroom and house. He also did some photography and journal writing about his life and family. He wrote the state for information to write a research paper…I’m not sure if he writes it later on, or just does a bit of note-taking. We’re a little behind since we moved.
The tan book has been good as well. The dictation/copywork passages are a bit long…I should probably shorten them. It also isn’t prepared dictation, but that could be easily fixed. The grammar is still fairly light and the writing assignments are not more than a paragraph. She’s focused quite a bit on prefixes and suffixes and keeps adding to a chart of each.
The upper levels have 4 book studies to be completed during the year. I haven’t been super impressed with these…I think some simple narration would be more effective.
Overall, I’m happy with this because it’s getting done! Before (when I was finding my own passages and coming up with lessons) I wasn’t as consistent as it should be. With LLATL I can just open the book and go. I can see how much they would learn throughout the whole program (with fun projects to keep it interesting).
I will add that we are switching to ELTL next year (I’m pretty sure anyway). The main reasons for switching are that I like the idea of 3 lessons per week. I have 5 DC and while my oldest pretty much does the lesson on her own, it still takes quite a bit of time getting everything done. With 3 lessons per week, I wouldn’t have to do a lesson with each child each day…I like the sound of that! I also like the fact that it teaches sentence diagramming and outlining. I love CM methods, but language arts is one area that I tend to prefer a more classical approach. ELTL seems to be a perfect combination of the two!
I think either choice you make will be fine. I’ve been debating switching because I’ve changed curriculum too much over the years! I am moderately pleased with LLATL and I’m sure I’ll have some issues with ELTL since no curriculum is 100% perfect. After doing the math, I realize will be saving with ELTL since I won’t have workbooks to buy each year.
April 18, 2015 at 5:51 pm
Rebekah
Participant
I am specifically looking at Orange and red for next year. Looking at orange, it looks like it might be a good fit for my son (he’ll be 10 when we use it). He doesn’t love writing, but his stamina has improved this year. And I think the variety in types of lessons might make it interesting for him. These lessons mostly didn’t seem too long, the things that are… Well at least I can let him finish them on his own.
The red level… My 7yo is currently in AAR 2 and I was thinking I could use red instead of AAR 3/4 next year. we tweak AAR so heavily, it’s basically just a list of phonograms/rules to casually discuss and some readers for us at this point. The lessons in the red level do seem too long. But if I was to freely drop any busy work, maybe it would work? She would be 8 when we use it. Or maybe I should just stick with what’s working and wait till 3rd and start her in yellow. I just wonder if it’s worth it, sticking with AAR, when we only use half the program.
April 18, 2015 at 11:08 pm
Rebekah
Participant
I had really only looked at the new versions. Today I took old the old red manual and looked it over. The lessons are a lot shorter. And no workbook full of copy and paste busy work. Everything you need is right there in the manual. There may not be, and probably isn’t, as much covered as far as grammar and ‘higher order thinking skills’ but I’m fine with that. It’s only 2nd grade, plenty of time to cover all that later. The nice short lessons would give more time for reading books she enjoys. We wouldn’t even have to do a lesson every day.
April 20, 2015 at 5:59 am
jeaninpa
Participant
I liked the older ones. The new ones are ok, but I did feel there was a lot of busywork in the younger grades especially. We have also used ELTL and Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons. If you like the idea of LLATL, those are similar.