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The stunning Mosdos textbooks are massive, so “How do we schedule this?” is a fair question!
Hope: Our question for today is about the Mosdos literature program. You guys have given us feedback that it looks like in an amazing program, and it really is, but it looks a little bit overwhelming. So the question is, what would a day look like in Mosdos? What would it look like to do it daily? How do we actually implement all this wonderful information?
Pearl: Well, I think there are a lot of different ways to do it because Mosdos has so many different components. There could be a lot of different ways to do it. Here’s how I would tackle it if I was handling a given week. I would do it as a weekly schedule, not a daily schedule, to give the kids a little bit of freedom in how they want to do that.
For example, let’s look at a 3rd grade course. This is about halfway through the third grade year.
You’re going to start by reading the Lesson in Literature. That’s a brief story with some questions just to give you an idea of the literary concept you’re covering. This one, for example, is about different settings in literature. Then you have your main story. It will give you a little heads-up on what the story is about, followed by the story. This one is about a town that moved. Then there will sometimes be a related poem. And then some follow-up Studying the Selection questions.
Different families will have different approaches to this, but here is what I would do. I would go through all of these questions and answer them orally. Then I would choose probably one of the written activities and have the student complete that. In this one, for example, maybe you would choose to create a flyer trying to get people from across America to come move out to your town out in the American West.
In addition, you will also have some workbook pages that go along with it. For this particular activity there are two vocabulary pages. There’s a brief writing exercise, an exercise in determining cause and effect, some drawing exercises, and that’s it. That is how I would schedule a 3rd grade Mosdos student. Now some families will want to do every written activity possible. Some will want to do things a little differently.
Hope: In your week I probably would start the week with the reading. Maybe answer the questions orally while it’s fresh, and then each day after that have them do something else. So the next day have them complete two of the workbook pages or all the workbook pages. And the last day have them do whatever activity you guys chose out of it. So you kind of break it up throughout the week. They can always reference the story again if they need to but you’re not trying to cram all of that into one day. Just kind of freshen it up as you go through the week.
Pearl: For some grades you will be doing two or three weeks, very similar though. You’ll be reading it, maybe on a different day doing the workbook activities, on a different day doing a writing assignment. It’s very similar throughout the grades, but with slight variations depending on which grade level your child is in.
Hope: You know your child best. For some of your children to read it will be more than enough for one day. For other children, to read it and get through some of the questions on the first day will be easy enough. So kind of base it off your child, but knowing at glance– “Okay, I’ve got reading. I’ve got activity questions and I’ve got some questions to answer with an additional activity.” –kind of tells you maybe you’ve got four days worth of things to split up. If your child’s easily overwhelmed with literature, cut some of those out. If they’re not, add more in. That should give you a running start on the literature program.
Pearl: Yes, and know your child, know your family. There are a lot of hands-on activities that correlate. There’s a ton you can do with it, but you don’t have to do everything with it either, so decide what is best for your family and implement it that way.
