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betancourt6

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Posts posted by betancourt6

  1. Hi Katrina!

    I know it's been several months since your initial post, but I just came across this very helpful thread and had to chime in. We have used both MoH and MFW and have Diana Waring's RRR to look over this year. We are currently using BiblioPlan and enjoy it. The reason I have RRR on hand is because I wanted to read through it, and I had discovered it after already starting BP. I know exactly how you feel about History; it's kept me searching as well! I came across a great article recently and have pasted the link below. The writer, Teri Johnson, does a great job of explaining why we should teach History using a good assortment of living books. What really has drawn me to History Revealed recently is the strong Biblical focus. Diana focuses on the Bible as the foundation, then works from there. A lot of Christian curricula seems to simply integrate Biblical teachings into the author's ideas. That might be fine for certain subjects, but I feel and believe that the Bible is the foundation for everything, and all else should be worked around that. That is my personal belief, which helps me in narrowing down the choices. If you have any questions that I could help with, please let me know.

     

    Blessings, JB

     

    http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/history.htm

  2. Thank you for sharing your experience, ladies! I have had such a wonderful experience with Julia Nalle at BP as well. I was so blessed by her kindness that I have recommended all my homeschooling to BP! Please keep sharing good experiences like this. A lot of small curricula businesses like BP grow and keep afloat by word of mouth, so share away! ;-)

  3. I totally agree about an acronym for Illuminations, LOL! :-P

    As for Beautiful Feet, it was my understanding that it can work for middle school and high school children, just not sure on the littles. I know they do carry elementary curricula, though. Check out their website. Another reason I was a bit hesitant on BF Ancients is the amount of required reading that was Greek Mythology. I do want our children to know about it, just not so much of a focus on it. Other than that, BF seems like a great History and Literature program. I read a great article recently about why it's important to have a variety of books to read when studying History. The link is below. If you scroll towards the bottom of the article, you'll find the author's addendum to her review of MoH. Hope this helps someone!

     

    http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/history.htm

  4. Hi there!

    I asked BiblioPlan about year 3 and she said that it should be ready by Spring/Summer 2014. As for Illuminations, I'm not sure when they will be adjusting their years to correlate with MoH IV. I am going to send them an email and will let you all know what I hear. With BP, MoH II & III are used in year 2, then MoH III remains in year 3. When I asked Julia at BP if/when they would integrate MoH IV in the next year, she said they didn't have a time frame yet. I would think that I could just add it into the lesson plans as we go through it.

     

    Since we've used some of Illuminations previously, I will say that they do a great job of putting together the various subjects. However, you are pretty much paying for the lesson plans and literature guides, both as downloads to print. The lesson plans correlate with the curricula they suggest to use, which is purchased separately. The main similarities between BP and Illuminations is the suggested literature and guides. They both offer some great reading suggestions, as well as clearly mentioning that a high school student needs to pair a reading book with a literature guide to obtain a literature credit, depending on how many are completed throughout the school year.

     

    Beautiful Feet was also suggested (hey Dorinda!!!), and I also agree that it is well laid out. I was able to get my hands on the Ancients guide recently and really like it. I decided not to use it only because I wanted all 3 of our homeschooling children working from the same curricula together. I may revisit BF next fall. ;-)

  5. This is excellent and oh-so-helpful, 1togo! I was wondering how we were going to organize it all, and you've made it pretty plain and simple. I have Year 2 in eBook format, but will most likely get Year 3 for next year in blended format, since I agree that the companion is way too big to print on my own. Since we've used it before, I am adding the literature guides from Illuminations Year 3 (Bright Ideas Press) for my 9th grade daughter. The only reason I decided to add those is because we used Illuminations last year and really enjoyed the guides. Some of the guides are sold separately on the BIP website, but it was way more cost effective to get the year of Illum. instead of purchasing the guides alone. I also use their lesson plans for a couple of the other subjects, like writing and English from the Roots Up. I will say that Biblioplan is more than enough by way of History and Literature, for sure. My daughter just liked the literature selection that Illum. offered for this particular year. We will have to re-visit this for next fall. We are quite new to BP, but have really enjoyed it so far and love the quality of the curricula. The customer service is outstanding, which is a big thing in my book!

  6. I don't have time to read all the posts, but I see that someone mentioned we use Biblioplan.  We do, and it is a perfect fit for us.  Our schedule looks like this:

     

    Monday - Companion & Cool History

    Tuesday - Cool History

    Wednesday - Cool History

    Thursday - Maps & Study

    Friday - Timeline & Study

     

    For Year 1, the workload was lighter, so dd could do the Cool History in two days, and history/geo was a four day schedule.  For Year 11, it is five days.  As regards literature, the Family Guide provides suggestions for reading and literature for all ages.  You choose the books and what you want to do with them; i.e. just read, use a study guide, write papers, etc.  We used Smarr lit guides for Year 1, and Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings for Year 2 ( currently finishing this).   We floundered around with classical history approaches before using BP, so we are only going to get through three years - Year 1, 2, and 4.  We've already done a lot with Early American history, so we are skipping Year 3.  I wish we could have done all four years.

     

    As regards credits, I am giving the following:

     

    World History - 1 credit for Years 1 & 2

    World Geography - 1 credit for Years 1 & 2

    Modern History - 1 credit for Year 4

    Bible - 1 credit each year because dd does more than read the scheduled Bible; i.e. various study materials.

    Literature, which is part of English - 1 credit each year because dd does more than read the books; i.e. Smarr guides, etc.

     

    For these credits, the daily schedule has a time slot for history/geo (about 1 hour), Bible (about 1 hour) and literature (1 hour plus).   We do other work as part of English (specific writing instruction, grammar review, timed writing prep), so English, like math, science, and Latin, takes an hour plus. 

     

    I really like the flexible structure we have with BP.  BP provides the spine, maps, tests and assignments for history/geo, and then we choose what we want for Bible and literature.  

     

    Hth,

     

    1togo

     

    Adding this about organization using Year 1 as an example:

     

    Since I am working with only one high school student, who works independently, organization is a snap.  I print the family guide for my teacher binder and check off things as we go.  Dd has a large binder for World History I with labeled dividers for each of the BP chapters; i.e. Creation, Egypt/Noah, Sumer/Babel, etc.  All related work for that chapter; i.e. Cool History, maps, literature, and Bible are put in this binder after the Unit tests  are finished.  Unit tests are put in the front of the big binder.  This binder gets full and is difficult to manage for daily work, so dd also has a smaller binder for her in-progress history/geography.  I print the Cool History and maps for one full unit and put them in the smaller binder.  When she completes a unit and takes the tests, she puts all of her work in the big binder in the appropriate sections.  I buy the blended bundles with a printed Companion (too big to print) and pdf files for everything else.

     

    Using this system, you will have four binders at the end of high school that contain history/geo, Bible, and literature.  Dd likes to save everything, but needs help with organization, so this works for us. 

     

  7. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with Biblioplan. I do have a question on the Lit part so hopefully someone who use will see this post and shed some light for me. I downloaded the 3 week sample. The family guide shows a note in the Lit section "see annotated book list.....blah blah" for all 3 weeks. Not sure what its referring to but I did view the Yr1 Advanced book list.

    So my question is; Does my student pick any Lit book and we just have to plug that in to the schedule? Or does it eventually schedule Lit that goes along with the lessons?

    I've scanned this forum for answers, the only thing I read so far was that the student can choose any book from the list.

    If someone can share how that works it will help me out tremendously. =)

    Hi Angie! I was in the same "boat" that you are in, and finally was able to narrow it down to 2 choices: Biblioplan or Illuminations. We used MoH 1 last year and are just finishing up MoH 2 to begin volume 3 before Christmas. Our children are in 9th, 7th, and 4th grades, and I had the same concerns as far as high school credits. Illuminations is from Bright Ideas Press (MoH publishers) and was created specifically to use with MoH, along with other subjects. It is a great program that includes literature suggestions and guides for grades 3-8 and high school. I was also able to get my hands on Biblioplan Year 2, since it utilizes MoH 2 & 3. I love that BP also has the book lists and literature suggestions, especially for high school. The annotated book list is in the Family Guide, though I don't believe they included it in the free 3-week sample. I had purchased the Ancients Year 1 Family Guide, but am not currently using it. If you haven't purchased it from BP just yet, let me know and I can explain it to you via email. My email is below also. I'm really leaning towards BP, but am still deciding on both. We do love MoH, so it's a win-win either way, since they both use MoH in these programs. By the way, Bright Ideas Press will be having an after Thanksgiving Day sale, if you'd like to check out Illuminations. That would probably be a great way to save money. Either way, both programs are excellent!

     

    Blessings, Jackie

    the betancourt 6 {at} gmail dot com

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