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What curriculum works well for combining children of several ages?


Melissa B
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SL is very easy to use with multi ages in the lower cores. My dd7 has learned a bunch listening to dd12's lessons over the years. For 8th grade, dd12, will be doing Core 100, and I will be doing Core 3/4 with younger dd7 (dd12 already completed cores 3/4 a few years ago), but I bet I will be using some of the each with both kids.

:iagree:

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I have no experience with TOG. It looks great as far as how it's set up. We are Christians but not reformed Christians. That's the main reason I haven't looked further into it.

 

I have used MFW and SL. I like both.

 

I'm now using Biblioplan. It is exactly what I needed and wanted. The approach to history is very much like MFW but it's just history. There are so many good books and it schedules readers, read-alouds, timeline work, mapping, writing assignments, and tons of wonderful history books. I am very, very pleased with it. It's a very simple program to implement and I can easily add in as many SL books as I want to. We do love our SL books and love the "feel" of SL, but Biblioplan is so similiar. The main draw for me (well, there are several, but the main one) is that it makes it very simple to combine your children. My boys are three years apart in age and as hard as I have tried (and believe me, I've spent many a hour - even years - trying to figure it out) I could not figure out how to combine them with SL. It certainly is possible and many moms use SL successfully that way, but it was just too much trouble and too mind-numbing for me to figure it out.

 

I love that the schedule includes reading from both SOTW and MOH. Between the SOTW AG and the extras in MOH, I have plenty of activities and discussion questions to draw from. I downloaded the Ancients e-book and got started that same day! Biblioplan also has a Reformed Christian flavor but not as much so as TOG from what I can tell. I love that we are reading the actual Bible for our history lessons (like MFW) and I can still include all the fun things from SOTW and incorporate as much or little of SL as I want.

 

This is really a good fit for us. I highly recommend it for combining children of various ages. On the guide, it is real clear what you should do with your grammar age child and your older children. There are ALOT of books (I read there are over 500 scheduled over the four year course) and it's easy to pick ones from the various groupings to meet the needs of your different children.

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Thank you for all of the replies! I have been looking through all of the curriculum mentioned. I think my main problem is that they take up more time than I want to spend on history. I was considering taking TRISM's History Makers and using it over three years. I am going to post a question about it now.

 

Thanks for all of your help, and any additional suggestions will be carefully considered!

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  • 2 weeks later...
I have looked at TOG and Biblioplan. Are there any other curriculum options that combine children of multiple ages? Any science programs that do?

 

 

Unit studies? Spend 4-6 weeks on something and move on. You can use a notebook approach... just keep any work they do in a notebook with a 1 inch ring size, or a folder. At the end of the year you can make a book of all the work.

 

Jennifer Steward has some great, simple ones. You can add anything to them, or use them as is.

 

We use TOG and use it to fit where we are at. We go as slow and as fast as we want. Right now we are in a slow mode. *Ü*

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Guest Lorna

We have found the Well Trained Mind's approach to science has worked well with our daughter age twelve and son aged ten. Both are being pushed but our son is never lost.

We usually use the 'How ... Works' series and then take things from there. For chemistry we are using Ellen McHenry's 'The Elements'. to teach the memorization suggested in 'The Well Trained Mind' and adding in experiments with a chemistry set and Janice Van Cleave books.

You can see how is looks on this post on our blog.

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Thanks for all of the replies!

 

I decided I really want to begin an American History study this year that combines both girls.

 

I think I am going to go with:

 

Building a New System: Colonial America 1607-1763

and

The World Turned Upside Down: The American Revolution

 

put out by the College of William and Mary

 

 

They are written as a school curriculum for grades 4-5. Each is supposed to be one semester. I like the look of them although I don't know anyone who has tried them. Their website says only the small group work has to be modified for homeschool use. As I will have two children, as well as myself and the two little ones, I think we can do quite a bit of the small group work and discussion with a bit of modification.

 

 

For science, I may just keep the girls separate. I like the curriculum I have but my younger daughter is not anywhere near the level necessary to join her sister.

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