Winter Promise Curriculum
Another great curriculum out there is Winter Promise. Whew! I almost purchased this one a couple of times. It looks so fun and exciting! You can get a free catalog at their website by emailing them.
The big reason that I backed out of using Winter Promise is that it looked like it would just be too much for us to do, activity wise. I also heard that their stuff is a bit harder to do. Well, who knows, right?
I tell ya, if I only had 1 or 2 children, I would probably have gone with Winter Promise. It definately would NOT be boring.
The following review is from The Homeschool Library:
Name of curriculum: Winter Promise
Common abbreviation: WP
Optimal age of students: Pre-K to High School
Type: Complete Curriculum
Educational Philosophy: Literature/Ruth Beechick
Worldview: Protestant
Website: www.winterpromise.com
Review: WP provides programs that are either Science or History based. They included daily readings on the topic of the program, RA’s, daily activities, notebooking, websites, movie/video recommendations and optional LA and readers.
A quote from the website:
Quote:
“Literature, Activities, Memories” A “Learning Together” approach means almost no parental prep time — all your time is spent in face-to-face time with your children!
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Strengths: Ease of use, great for hands on children, multiple ways to interact with the material and engage the child, great books, the programs are designed to use with multiple ages and to that end there are recommendations for extra resources, as well as which resources might be dropped and at times full schedules for additional books.
Weaknesses: New company with growing pains. It is expensive to purcahse whole packages.
Comments: I love this program even through we have only used it for a short time. The fact that they have science levels is huge as I have one child who has a science bent. My kids love having so much to do and find it quite an adventure.
History books: Usually there is a main text with supporting texts. At the AW, AS 1 levels I have they are mostly color picture texts.
RA’s: These are fun stories that pertain to the subject, some historical literature will be used but some are just for fun.
Activity books: This is a huge part of WP. Not just doing the activities but reading about the activities is actually scheduled. Often these are scheduled on the Independent Study Sheets for the child to read on their own. There are a variety of types of crafts. Some are paper (color cut and paste), but others are making with craft resources (plates, bags, pipe cleaners, ect..) and some just require a good imagination. The intent was to provide a CHOISE of activities that fit a variety of learning styles so there is something for everyone. If you want to do them all you will need to either do prep work (cutting and gathering) to save on time or you will want to stretch the program out for longer than a year.
Websites: All levels include websites, usually one or two a week. Even my 4yo will come over and take a peek because it is on the computer.
Movies: Several movies are recommended throughout the year. These are not required, just enriching.
Resource lists: WP really wants to make each program usable with a wide variety of ages. To that end they include extra reading schedules (History of the US is included in AS 1 and 2), extra books both fictional and non-fiction, extra activity resources (books and field trip ideas). Sky and Sea also includes whole guides targeted to older and younger children that detail what books to drop and other books that can be substituted.
Bible: Is on the light side at the younger ages, but that was a plus for us because I already had Story Bibles I was reading to them. Now I just do both. I didn’t get the CD’s because I have a memorization program in place already.
Notebooking: I am not doing this piece, but as I understand it the pages vary: some will have additional information, a picture to color, a place to draw a picture or a place to write the child’s narration.
Timeline: WP uses a notebook type timeline on heavy card stock. The intention is to use it with the notebooking all in one binder. To that end the timeline pages are 3 hole punched. They also have summaries at the top of the pages of the general period of history as well as a number line in the middle. Two type of timeline figures are carried. One is the WP figures which are in full color with a sticky back for sticker type use. The second is the History Through the Ages CD. You then print off pages to color and paste into your timeline.
Mapping: At the AS 1 level most of the mapping is done with 3-D maps, which my children love. My guess is that they use the Mystery of History mapping at the upper levels (Quest for the Ancients and Quest for the Middle Ages), but I haven’t used them yet.
IG: I wanted to make one more comment on the resources WP adds. The IG’s will have narration cards that ask questions for the child to answer. At the lower levels they are big picture questions instead of details. There is a timeline of events as well as a weekly topic list so that adding books is fairly painless. They include timeline cards (event on one side and explanation on the other) and instructions for playing games with them. The activity list has all the projects listed, how difficult they are and what resources are needed. The movie list has all the movies recommended, so you don’t have to go searching through the IG to find them. WP is trying to make the program as easy and user friendly as possible.
WP also offers Math, two chess levels, and smaller science programs without RA’s and readers. Their LA uses vertical phonics and traditional workbooks with handwriting included, but as I haven’t used their LA someone else will have to detail it.
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