TKDmom Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 I've bought the Book of Trees and What's that Bird? curricula from MP for my 12yo and 10yo this year. I'm trying to figure out scheduling right now. I just discovered that MP offers PDF lesson plans for individual subjects. Would the lesson plans add any value to the program? How often do they schedule science? Just once a week? What is included in the lesson plans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALB Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Hopefully someone who has purchased the lesson plans will give a better answer, but I have bought their individual plans for Latin and a couple grades of the complete curriculum plans. Most of their science is once a week. If you look at the fifth grade curriculum sample, you can see what one week of science looks like. The individual lesson plans are just those boxes for the whole year, with a few teaching guidelines at the beginning. Given the low price of the plans, I think they are a helpful (but not necessary) tool for using MP products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 I didn't think to look at the full curriculum for samples. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Memoria Press does schedule science once per week - basically a lesson a week. Additionally, Birds and Trees are not full year courses. They use these plus some of the Tiner books to create a full year course. I believe Birds is scheduled over about 13 weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 Memoria Press does schedule science once per week - basically a lesson a week. Additionally, Birds and Trees are not full year courses. They use these plus some of the Tiner books to create a full year course. I believe Birds is scheduled over about 13 weeks. I have all the Tiner books as well, so it's good to know I'll have time to fit some in. DD read and loved History of Medicine last year, and she's making her way through Biology now, so they'll work nicely with the Birds and Trees books. I'm sure ds10 would enjoy History of Medicine this year. Looking at the 1-week sample, Trees is scheduled for 2 days. I have no idea if that is a one-time schedule, a sometimes schedule, or if it's always twice a week at that level. Maybe I'll just have her work on it twice a week. We could stand to do science more than once a week. I guess my biggest question is, do the lesson plans have more to them than, "Read these pages, complete corresponding workbook pages"? Because I can figure that out on my own from the workbook. As far as I can tell, the teacher book is really just an answer key, and it doesn't have a schedule for reading the additional books that came in the package. Does the science schedule flesh out the plans a little more? For $5, I think it wold be worth it to keep me on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 MP usually schedules Science, Christian Studies, Classical Studies and Modern Studies once per week - Monday thru Thursday. Fridays are used for tests, quizzes, review or sometimes an additional lesson from one of these four subjects. It is likely that in the lesson plan you saw, that science happened to be scheduled twice that week, although I cannot say for certain because I don't have the sixth grade plans. In the 5th grade plans Famous Men of the Middle Ages is usually scheduled once weekly, but when there is a test, it is scheduled on its normal day plus Friday. As far as what the Birds plan contain, it lists what pages in the text to read, which lesson to complete in the workbook and which pages to color in the Birds Coloring Book. Quizzes and tests are also scheduled. The teachers guide is just the student guide with answers, but it does also contain tests and quizzes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ~Angela~ Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 I purchased the PDF lesson plans for the Trees program. It is twice a week and includes scheduling for Exploring the World of Biology. There is no help other than the schedule. I haven't received the Tree books, but I imagine it would be very easy to schedule on your own. We used the Bird Study last year without the pdf schedule and it was no problem at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 Thanks everyone! I spent the morning at a friend's house looking through her 5th grade MP plans. I wrote down what a typical lesson consists of and decided I could easily schedule that myself.I went ahead and got the guide for trees, just for my own accountability. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 My apologies for assuming Trees would be scheduled once a week. Good to know it is not. I agree that you can easily schedule these without the plans. I find their plans to be most useful when there are more lessons than would fit in a standard school year requiring that you complete more than one lesson per week. I think that is one of the reasons I have liked MP so far - easy to plan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 29, 2014 Author Share Posted July 29, 2014 My apologies for assuming Trees would be scheduled once a week. Good to know it is not. I agree that you can easily schedule these without the plans. I find their plans to be most useful when there are more lessons than would fit in a standard school year requiring that you complete more than one lesson per week. I think that is one of the reasons I have liked MP so far - easy to plan. Oh, no apologies necessary! It looks like Grade 6 is the only year they schedule science 2x/week. I do like how neatly they schedule everything out. I drool over MP complete curriculum for that reason, but I know it wouldn't all work for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space station Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Oh, no apologies necessary! It looks like Grade 6 is the only year they schedule science 2x/week. I do like how neatly they schedule everything out. I drool over MP complete curriculum for that reason, but I know it wouldn't all work for me. Me, too. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at and drooling over their 6th grade curriculum, when I know it would not work for us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenDaisies Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 I didn't think it would work for us either. We started with Prima in 3rd, then used Latina Christiana, Famous Men of Rome and Classical Comp in 4th. We loved it so much that we switched to their literature. For 5th grade we ordered the 5th grade core minus the Rod & Staff math and language arts. They are so accommodating when you put a package together. They will remove or exchange anything you don't want and still give you the package discount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKDmom Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 I didn't think it would work for us either. We started with Prima in 3rd, then used Latina Christiana, Famous Men of Rome and Classical Comp in 4th. We loved it so much that we switched to their literature. For 5th grade we ordered the 5th grade core minus the Rod & Staff math and language arts. They are so accommodating when you put a package together. They will remove or exchange anything you don't want and still give you the package discount. Ha! I just came back over to this forum ISO of ideas for 4th grade. I wasn't expecting to homeschool my 4th grader this year, but circumstances changed suddenly. And this was the first topic on the list! You're tempting me. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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