I had a sort of love?hate relationship with this curriculum. It was wonderful with all the books, but as our family grew I couldn't keep up with all the reading. One of my problems was that the kids were in their own cores. Now, if I had only had 2 or maybe stopped at 3 kids that wouldn't be too much of a stretch, but personally, I couldn't pull it off. (There are large families out there that love Sonlight and use it and works great, we're just not there at this season in life). Truthfully I still drool over the catalog, especially Core D which we would of started this year if I hadn't picked My Father's World Exploration-1850. Truthfully, I will pull from Sonlight and use what I can find from my library for book basket time :).
So, after a few years of Sonlight I found another literature based curriculum that I also love, Heart of Dakota. No real negatives about this one either. We actually just finished up HOD Preparing which was great. I love all the book choices, and for a conservative Christian this is a great choice. The problem we hit was my oldest was ready to move on to the Creation to Christ guide but my 3rd grader really only should be going into Bigger Hearts for His Glory. I really didn't want to split them up, and Noah didn't like the idea of him doing most of the reading, so the search continued...
So for our final choice we came upon My Father's World. I have known about this curriculum from the beginning, but never really felt drawn to it. I think mostly the idea of using the library terrifies me. I mean, if you have a couple preschoolers that are very high energy, library isn't always a peaceful time :( Right now I have only one, my 3 year old, that gives me a hard time at the library and it is always at the checkout. I really wish my library was like our old one in Missouri. There you could place a hold on what you wanted and just pull up to a drive thru window and they would give you your stack of books. Oh I miss that. Here they wont even let you put a hold on a book unless it is checked out. Oh well, we at least have a great selection for the most part so I am thankful for that.Anyway, so we have gone through world history basically 2 times but never really hit on American History. I played with the idea of just doing a year of American history, but I do really like the Well Trained Mind's philosophy of doing a 4 year cycle. So, MFW does 1 year geography then the 4 year cycle and incorporates American history along with world history so we are trying this out. Truthfully, they do not suggest jumping into the cycle the way we are, but we are doing it anyway :)
So, here we are at week 1. I have really enjoyed the start of this week and will do an overview of this week later, but but for now I want to share a little about why I love this curriculum:
1. Book basket time. This is a history/science lead quiet reading time. The other 2 curriculum choices had readers for the kids, but what I prefer about this is that they get to choose what they are going to read. One of the problems they had in the past is they didn't always love the books they were reading. I loved the fact that I had the books, but truthfully we would drop some because they just were not that interesting. A lot of the books were great, but this way, the kids take more interest in the books they are reading because they are the ones they picked out. If one is a dud then I don't feel so bad about them putting it back because I didn't pay for the book ;)
2. Notebooking. HOD does have notebooking, Sonlight didn't, but the notebooking activities can be adjusted to fit the kids age and abilities. The family cycle is for 2nd-8th grade, so it is nice that one may be able to do more and the other less.
3. Easy projects. Sonlight didn't really have much hands on besides science. HOD has this, but MFW has different projects and some aimed more at older kids and others at younger ones. Week 1 day 1 had an optional activity of making a world cake. Here is our attempt of it. Truthfully we used cookie icing and that made it a little harder to shape, but I could tell pretty much what everything was ;)
4. Art and music is included. We never seem to get to this. I love there is a set of CD's we can listen to for music and learn about different composers. We haven't done art yet, but it is there and we will get to it.
5. I love their Language Arts recommendations. I remember when I started schooling I purchased Ruth Beechick's The Three R's. This is a great book and suggests a more gentle approach to LA. So, after killing my 4th grader this last year with diagramming and confusing him, we are going to try this approach. My kids will get more advanced grammar, but this will happen when they are a little older. I have learned a lot from the few years we have used Rod & Staff, but I think it is a little overwhelming right now, so we are using all the LA recommendations from MFW with the exception of spelling, for now and we will continue on with All About Spelling.
6. The Bible portions. We have really been digging into the book of James and am really excited about memorizing the book of James. They actually give you an option about memorizing a portion of it instead of the whole thing, but we are ambitious and will try the whole thing. If we don't make it, some is more than none :)
7. The teacher's manual. HOD was great and I love their layout, but MFW has everything in it and it's not very big at all. Sonlight was huge if you did LA, Core, and Science!!! I mean big can be good, but sometimes a little confusing. I like things simple. The only thing that I don't like is flipping between the week grid of assignments and notes for the week. That really isn't a big deal, but truthfully HOD did spoil me with having the day layed out over a 2 page spread so there was no flipping.
8. There tend to be a lot of larger families that use this program over a long period of time. If there are families of 9 that can use this program for several years without burnout that is a huge draw. Making life easier is what I'm about. Some days I feel like my brain is pulled in 50 different directions from potty training and naps to multiplication facts and keeping the kids on task without complaining or fighting and still managing the home and taking care of my wonderful husband. OK, my brain is ready for a break and this is one thing that is making it easier. So, thank you Hazell family for creating this wonderful program that I get to enjoy with my family learning about My Father's World!!
I'm sure there is a lot more that I will love about MFW, but like I said we are just starting and haven't gotten to explore the whole thing yet. Well, I just wanted to share a little about why I chose the route we are going.
Blessings,
Amy
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