Wow! Was this past weekend ever a long weekend for me. I started the weekend thinking I might make some changes to our curriculum. I was planning some drastic changes that involved a lot of work for me. Well, I did make some drastic changes and they were a lot of work for me... but still less work than I would have been doing. I decided to switch to Expedition Earth and say my farewells to My Father's World. Let me say this... I STILL LOVE My Father's World, but while my kids are all still young I need something that is even more simply laid out. Most all of the same books are used for this curriculum. The ones that are not used are the ones I don't like. It is just what I wanted. And I can still add what I want to this curriculum (not because it needs it). There are a few things that I had ordered that were part of MFW ECC (plus the deluxe package) that I want to still use. We will still use the Hero Tales book and the Christian Heroes series of books (six of those). All those books are about Christian heroes and now that I have seen them I just want to read them. I will also still use the Origami book when we do our Asia study. We will be using the Animal Search book because we all really like that book. It is like an I Spy book. Another great book we are keeping is The Complete Book of Animals.
What we will not be keeping from MFW ECC is the Student Sheets, Teacher's Supplement packet, The Classroom Atlas (because I have some others), World Geography (TCR... worksheet booklet), Properties of Ecosystems, and the MFW ECC Teacher's Lesson Plan book.
I am also making some additional changes to our "core" subjects. I have followed a lot of MFW's suggestion and done some of my own things. I have used Primary Language Lessons and loved it, but I think it is too much for my 2nd grader when I look at it now. My oldest daughter was a bit older when we used it for her. Also, Intermediate Language Lessons and Writing Strands were part of my plan this year for my oldest. Scratch that!!! ILL makes and aggressive jump forward that I nor my daughter are ready for. It is mostly just too time consuming for me to have to do with her. And Writing Strands... well, I think it will just teach her to hate writing. Neither of us liked it by week number two. So, I am just going to pull together some other stuff here that I think will work better for us. Anyway, so now we have a whole new plan!
If you are interested in looking at the differences in Expedition Earth and ECC you can click on the link above and there is a download for a sample of one of the weeks. That download show the Table of Contents and also all the curriculum books needed.
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What blog is about Intro
Come on in and sit awhile while I talk about the "Little Things" in life. I will share my journey of everyday life.... homeschooling, raising my children, homesteading, gardening, health and wellness, and real life.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Getting Started With My Father's World ECC
It seems I always start a new curriculum with a bit of struggle. This year I thought that would not be the case. I thought I was prepared, but once again I have much to learn. I clearly did not fully realize what I had purchased when I ordered My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. I had this vision of fun little moments of cultural adventure and pointing out the countries on the map. That was my vision, but as usual I soon lost "my" vision. I have been trying to do everything in someone else's vision. And I did purchase this curriculum to get the expertise of that "someone else" and their vision, but I have got to start remembering that I must not lose my own vision in theirs. We have to give ourselves room to change what we need to change or simply omit some things.
This weekend I shall spend some time rediscovering my vision. I already know some things I will change. Right now I want to share a little about what we like and what we don't about this curriculum. First of all, I think there is a huge mix of age ranges within the books. The problem with that is that there are a couple of books that are way to complex in my opinion. On the other hand I can see where some people might not like some of the more youthful books and the music CD. I myself have to ease myself into the "hokeyness" of children's music, but now that I have I would say there is much to learn from it even for older age groups. This curriculum also has a lot of worksheets and labelling of maps and that equals dullness to me. I know that sometimes learning can be dull, but these worksheets require way too much labelling. I would rather do a puzzle of the world or the country we are talking about or some other hands on activity. I think they can learn as much that way without getting severe hand cramps. I can see having a worksheet with a list on the side and drawing arrows to the location or using an "A,B, C..." type code. I do see the value of some mid to older age range kids learning the spellings of the countries and geography words, but my 2nd grader is not able to write in all that information and even my 5th grader is stretching it a bit with as much labelling as the sheets have. I will go through the books one at a time and tell what I like, so this will be sort of a product review. Keep in mind that we are only beginning, so maybe I can update this as the end of the year.
Deluxe Package Items:
Overall, it is the map labelling, overabundance of worksheets, and book choices for Science that I do not like. I love the Biblical perspective of MFW. I only share this because I think the more you are prepared for what you are getting yourself into the better. Had I realized some of these things I probably would not have gotten so panicked once we started using it and realizing how overwhelming it would be for US. I will try to update with my plans later. Off to brainstorm about it all....
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