Homeschool With Tracey

The Story of The World homeschool history curriculum is, in my opinion, absolutely wonderful.  It tells history in a story-book format that is easy to understand for a variety of ages.  Although I have only read Volume 1 of 4, I am very excited that the homeschool curriculum we use, My Father’s World, uses The Story of The World, Volumes 2-4.

I also recommend the Activity Books that go along with The Story of The World, especially if you plan to use these as your sole history homeschool curriculum.  I use them with our My Father’s World curriculum, but it isn’t absolutely necessary.

The following is from The Homeschool Library:

Name of curriculum: The Story of the WorldCommon abbreviation: SOTW

Ages this curriculum is designed to be used with: Written with Grammar ages, 1st - 4th in mind but families do use this with 5th - 8th graders also.

Educational Philosophy: The Classical Method; Unit Study Approach; Eclectic Schooling

Worldview: Secular; Biblical Stories are included

Historical period: There are four volumes for SOTW and one for each time period, ancient — Early Man to ~400AD, middle ages — 400AD to 1600, renaissance —- 1600 - 1850, modern —- 1850 to 2000.

Geographical area: The approach is to cover World History chronological and thus the entire world geography is covered. Families are encouraged to locate the area discussed on maps, and maps are provided in both the SOTW books and the Activity Guide

Website: http://www.peacehillpress.com/

Review:
SOTW is history told in a chronological approach, presented as engaging short stories with the elementary child in mind. Supplemental materials include an Activity Book, tests, and SOTW on CD.

I consider the Activity Book to be an essential part of using SOTW for any family. It contains comprehension questions, sample narrations, book lists, maps, coloring pages, and activities for each and every chapter. The suggested activities range from cooking activities to craft items to make, to games to play, to word-search puzzles, to…… There’s something in there for every-type of learner. The extensive supplementary reading lists for the story read list books from ones that will appeal to the younger ages to ones for the advanced reader.

Our family has enjoyed the audio-books also, however they are not an essential component of SOTW. We have not used the tests. The additional student pages permit one to avoid having to copy the student pages in the Activity Guide and are a convenience to have on hand.

A quote from the website:

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Strengths:
SOTW is designed to teach children of all ages so it is easy to group your family on the same topic. With everything there, SOTW book and the Activity Guide, a run to the library to pick-up the week’s history book is not necessary. However, the extra book lists and activities found in the Activity Guide permit a family to dive deep into a topic that interests them. Includes all learning styles. Lends itself to be used by co-ops.

This is a pick-it-up and GO program with little preparation needed by Mom if that is the approach you wish to use. Of course, if you wish to do lots of planning then you can do that too.

Can be quite inexpensive to use; ~$15 for SOTW and ~$30 for the Activity Guide for each year.

Weaknesses:
You need to pick and chose among the activities and books to read since there is no way you can do it all.

Secular families might find the Biblical Stories presented as fact annoying. Christian families might find the presentation of early man as a hunter-gatherer and a lack of exclusive focus upon the ancient Biblical stories annoying. As a Christian family we did not find this to be the case.

Comments:
Our family used SOTW years 1-4 when they first came out. My youngest was entering First Grade while my older child was entering Fifth Grade. We, as a family, had been through a 4-year chronological study of history once before starting SOTW. It was easy to use these books with both boys and the Activity Guide helped tremendously in assisting me with making the program more rigorous for my older child. Each SOTW chapter was referenced to several different encyclopedias pages so after our SOTW reading I could send him off to investigate the topic or outline from the encyclopedia for his notebook too.

Having completed SOTW Volumes 1-4 we started the history cycle over again. My youngest continues to listen to the audio-books at night, and often requests to be read to from SOTW books.

While SOTW was written with the Classical Educating Family in mind I know of several families who take a Unit-Study approach and just LOVE SOTW. These families are happily using it with their kids in Grades 1 - 12.

Please, give your feedback about this curriculum too!

We’ve been using Singapore Math in our homeschool since 2001, and I am definitely pleased with the results.  Two of our five children have used it with great results, so I am optimistic that my other three children will do fine with it as well.We’ve used the Singapore Math Primary Levels 1A-5B, after which we are moving on to Saxon 8/7 and above.  This is what is recommended by our My Father’s World curriculum.  I also used the Earlybird levels of Singapore Math with my oldest daughter back in 2001, but we are using My Father’s World First Grade Math from now on due to the fact that it is very hands-on and works wonderfully for us.

The following is from The Homeschool Library:

Name of curriculum: Primary Mathematics US Edition

Common abbreviation: Singapore Math(s), SM, PM

Educational Approach: Strives for understanding, rather than stressing drill or rote learning of algorithms

Grade level: Pre-K to 6 or 7

Worldview: Secular

Website: http://www.singaporemath.com/

Review: There are two main sections: Earlybird and the main Primary Maths series.

Earlybird consists of four books: 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B, roughly covering Pre-K and K.

Primary maths has a textbook and a work book for each level from 1A to 6B, covering grades 1 to 6 or 7. Grade designations are not exact, due to the different education system in Singapore.

A quote from the website:

Why Singapore Math?

Singapore students were in first place in the 1995, 1999 and 2003 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)….

Singapore students who took TIMSS in 1995, 1999 and 2003 were using the Primary Mathematics series. The results speak for themselves…

Strengths: This curriculum strives to teach real understanding of maths, using a concrete - pictorial - abstract method. Standard algorithms are also taught, but from a basis of understanding, rather than through rote learning. Mental maths skills are particularly well covered, as is algebraic thinking through diagrams. The word problems are of a sophistication not usually found at this level.

Weaknesses: Some students may find that there is not enough practice. Many parents supplement with a drill program; others use the supplementary Singapore books: Challenging Word Problems, Extra Practice and Intensive Practice.

Comments: This program has been very good for our family, despite my children’s different learning styles. It’s not a good fit for everyone, so it would be great to have some comments from those with different experiences.

I only used Tapestry of Grace for a couple of months, and the problem I had was that it wasn’t an “open and go” curriculum. There are many teacher’s notes to read each week. There were just too many choices to make, too, at least for me. It is not a “one teacher’s manual” curriculum. You have many resources that you have to organize. It just got too confusing for me.However, Tapestry of Grace has gotten some great reviews and has a wonderful reputation.  I have read that it is especially good for the high school years.You can definitely combine with this curriculum.  Some people LOVE the choices that Tapestry of Grace offers.

The following review is from The Homeschool Library:

Name of curriculum: Tapestry of Grace

Common abbreviation: TOG

Ages this curriculum is designed to be used with: All (specificially designed to teach all ages together).

Educational Philosophy: Classical

Worldview: Protestant

Historical period (if relevant): Year 1 covers creation to Christ, year 2 up to 1800, year 3 the 1800s, year 4 modern history

Geographical area (if relevant): year 3 and 4 are primarily US history based but world history is tied in, it is not specifically a US history course

Website: http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/

Review: TOG is a history based, chronological study. It includes plans for history, geography, government, church history, art history, and literature. Weekly plans are given using a selected book list but you can substitute what you have on hand or can find in your library fairly easily. It is divided into 4 learning levels - upper and lower elementary (say grades 4-6 and 1-3), dialectic (junior high), and rhetoric (high school). You can use the same guide with all 4 levels at once, and use it over and over with the same student - if you start with TOG and stay with it, your student goes through each time period 4 times, each time at greater depth. TOG is discussion based, but provides opportunities for hands on activities and a substantial writing component.

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Strengths: TOG is designed to teach children of all ages so it is easy to group your family on the same topic, topic based so you can substitute materials of your choosing if the recommended book is not in your library, weekly scheduling allows the course to fit your lifestyle, encourages independent learners, deep and rich course, you need to be able to pick and choose among the options because there is no way you can do it all. Very academically rigorous. Includes all learning styles. Lends itself (and encourages) co-ops.

Weaknesses: Can be expensive if you do not have a good library available to you, requires parental prep - this is not an open and go type curriculum, the method can be confusing for the first timer. Time consuming. Can be overload of reading for some, not enough for others.

Comments: We are in year 4, completing our round through TOG and we’ve loved it. We switched to TOG from SL so I didn’t find the method too confusing and prefered the weekly scheduling and ability to choose my own books. I think the writing program is excellent, and appreciated having the fine arts and geography threads woven in. The only thing I wasn’t totally sold on was the literature piece. TOG isn’t and doesn’t purport to be a complete curriculum - you’ll need to add phonics and grammar, math, science and foreign language.

Another curriculum that I considered using is Ambleside Online.  It is a free (many of the books are online, and the schedule is free online.This curriculum uses some wonderful classic literature, is not as burdensome as it looks (so I’m told), and has many free resources for you to use (even a free math resource!)  However, I don’t use it because, for us, it would have been too difficult to combine with my ages of children (but I’ve heard that others have done it just fine!).

If I were on a tighter budget, and even perhaps if I were just starting out (I have been with My Father’s World for 3 years…so I have 3 year’s worth of their curriculum packages already), then I would definitely have given Ambleside Online a try.

The following review is from The HomeSchool Library website:

Curriculum: Ambleside Online

Type: Complete Curriculum

Educational Philosophy: Literature - Charlotte Mason

Worldview: Protestant

Website: http://www.amblesideonline.org/

From their website:
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Strengths: Free, comprehensive list of books and scheduling. If followed as laid out this would provide a good knowledge of literature, nature, and the arts.

Weaknesses: Challenging schedule, looks like it could be overwhelming.

Comments: I haven’t used this curriculum… but the Charlotte Mason approach has always appealed to me. I’m looking forward to comments from users.

Have you used it? Please share your thoughts and comments here.

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.

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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.

Another complete curriculum that I have used in the past is Sonlight.  I used Sonlight from 2001-2004.  It was wonderful!  What a great curriculum to start out with.  My oldest child, who is now 12, loved for me to read to her.  She could sit and listen to me read forever.  Sonlight is made for children who love to listen to you read.  The books that my daughter and I read together are priceless.  Sonlight really goes all out choosing the books for their curriculum.We stopped using Sonlight after I started homeschooling my 2^nd oldest child, who is now 9.  She isn’t as into reading as my oldest child is, so I had to find a curriculum that better suited her “hands on” needs.  I did teach her (2^nd oldest) to read with Sonlight, and that worked very well for her.  However, Sonlight doesn’t have very many hands on projects, and it would have been difficult for me to combine my children with it (but many people do that!).

The following is taken from The Homeschool Library:

Curriculum: Sonlight

Type: Complete Curriculum

Educational Philosophy: Literature

Worldview: Protestant

Website: http://www.sonlight.com/

Review: Sonlight curriculum is a company that puts together complete curriculum packages for various grade levels. Their “Core” materials are their history packages which are literature based. Each grade level package has Bible, History, Language, and Science Instructors Guides available. The instructor’s guides contain detailed lesson plans for each subject. History, Reading, and Bible are in one IG, the “Core” IG. Language Arts and Science each have their own IG.

Sonlight’s website says:

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Strengths: Easy planning with thorough Instructors Guides; good high-quality literature; Can be adjusted to suit the needs of each student; Core programs can be combined to suit the needs of different levels. The strength of SL lies in the IGs which are full of notes and comments. These can be invaluable in explaining some of the finer points of the books.

Weaknesses: May be too many books for some students or not enough for others; requires active involvement by the parent, especially in the younger grades; I found adjusting the IG to not be a big problem but it did require some work.

Comments: I think that whether you enjoy SL depends somewhat on whether you and your student enjoy the “spine” of the core you choose. The books are not all that different from what you will see elsewhere in a literature based program. They are mostly Newberry Award winners and other classics. Many of the books SL chooses are sad tales, designed to elicit an emotional response. Not all children are going to enjoy such emotionally charged literature.

We use My Father’s World curriculum.  I chose My Father’s World because they integrate the Bible into history (i.e., you learn what was happening in the rest of the world when Jesus was born), they give great activity suggestions that aren’t too complex, I can buy almost everything I need right from them, they support Bible translation (part of your purchase goes towards it!), they have a mission focus (the family who wrote the curriculum are missionaries), everything is laid out in the teacher’s manual and explained extremely well (I never think, “What the heck are they talking about?!”), they teach history chronologically (each package year just continues from the last), they have curriculum from preschool all the way up through high school, and the support is wonderful as well as the PRICE!More information…taken from The Homeschool Libarary:Name of curriculum: My Father’s World

Common abbreviation: MFW

Optimal age of students: The 5 year history cycle program is designed for multi level teaching for students in grades 2-8. There is also a K and 1st grade program. High school is being completed (currently have through grade 10 finished…11th & 12th grade coming soon.)

Type: Complete curriculum

Educational Philosophy: combines easy hands-on unit studies, with Charlotte Mason, and Classical Education from a Christian view

Worldview: Christian

Website: http://www.mfwbooks.com/

Review: MFW is a chronological based history program that integrates the Bible throughout the program. The teacher’s manual is laid out in a weekly grid format with daily notes for teaching from the “spines”. The manual also contains an extensive listing of recommended library books that enrich the unit study in geography, history and science. It includes easy hands on projects that use common household items. The weekly lesson plans include a materials list for those projects. Notebooking is a primary method of review and “testing” in history and science. God’s word is a central theme to unify many subjects. Scripture reading and memory are scheduled. But doctrine is left to the parents to teach instead of from any specific denominational point of view within Christianity.

A quote from the website:

• Recognizes the Bible, God’s truth, to be the foundation of wisdom and education.
• Utilizes hands-on, unit studies with daily lesson plans that are easy-to-teach.
• Enables families and multi-age groups to learn together. Many of our programs may be taught to a range of ages simultaneously.
• Combines the best of Charlotte Mason’s ideas and classical education with a Biblical worldview, an international focus and our own observations of how children learn.
• Uses a comprehensive sequenced learning program beginning with preschool learning toys to develop readiness skills. Our complete unit-based curriculum includes a phonics-based learning-to-read program and focuses on God’s amazing creation (kindergarten), the world of the Bible (first grade), and U.S. history (second or third grade). Then a year of geography sets the foundation for four years of chronological world and U.S. history.
• Provides easy-to-teach, integrated curriculum that is enjoyable, academically strong, and focused on character development.
• Is committed to the Lord of All, who tenderly searches for people from every tribe and language. A portion of our profits helps support mission work overseas, especially Bible translation projects. Our heart’s desire is that someday soon all people would be able to read of God’s love in their own language.

Strengths: The teacher’s manual is easy to follow with daily lesson plans to combine 7-10 subjects over the course of the day. Strong at integrated Bible with history. Hands on projects are easy to do. The planning is done for you. Designed to help combine students in one main program for grades 2-8 to study as a family.

Weaknesses: Some families do not like to use libraries. MFW encourages library use for enrichment reading in the unit studies. However, all required books for the program are sold in either basic or deluxe package.

Comments: David and Marie Hazell lived in Russia for eight years working on Bible translation and returned to the U.S. in 2000. They now devote the majority of their time to the development of My Father’s World curriculum with the dual goal of providing support for Bible translation and raising up a generation of children that see God’s hand in all of history and share God’s heart for the nations