Will WP prepare kids for college?

[Tiffani]

I've been researching (way too much) on WP today.

 

Somewhere I was reading that some felt that if you stayed w/ it (through hs) your student wouldn't be prepared due to the reading level of the books in hs.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[Rebecca]

I haven't read anything about that... but the one thing that struck me while reading your post is this:

 

You (the teacher) are the only one who really prepares your child for college.

Curriculum is just your tool.

Ultimately, it is your responsibility.

No one "program" will accomplish that for you.

 

There are a variety of factors that will prepare your child for higher level learning...

 

I hope this makes sense,

Rebecca

[Tiffani]

Rebecca,

Very true, but a "good tool" is extremely useful in accomplishing a given task :) A sharpened knife does a much better job than a dull one, KWIM?

[Karen in CO]

Don't you love "catalog season"? Anyway... There is more than one way to skin a cat to use a cruel and barbaric metaphor (and a quote from a kid's movie). WP is not a Great Books curriculum. But not everyone wants or needs the Great Books in high school. If you taught the WP HS material to your children and required high school level work, then they would be prepared for college. Simple. It is not TWTM and it is not Omnibus. I don't know anyone who has used it. I have looked at it and might have chosen some of it for my ds if the time periods had lined up whit what we had needed.

[Heather in VA]

Well I haven't used it but I've looked at it. Honestly I think you'd have to beef it up quite a bit, especially in the writing, to make it a college-prep curriculum. Now that isn't to say you couldn't do it, just that I don't think "out-of-the-box" it's truly college-prep.

[Karen in CO]

I agree that the writing needs to be strong, but I can't tell from the description of the British Lit what they include for writing at all. It seems to be focused on creative writing in the HS1 and 2 programs. I guess I always just assumed that if I did this I would do expository writing from some other source.

 

So strike what I said before and think about lots more writing like Heather said.

[Kari C in SC]

I think it is what you make of it. If you assign writing assignments that are of a high school level - then you have a high school level program. I haven't used WP for high school. I wish it would have been around when my oldest was in high school. He would have enjoyed it. I tried many things with him and they all didn't fit. This program would have fit. I alway refer back to how much history I really learned in high school and realize that my 9 year old has learned more than that doing WP in 3rd and 4th grade. To me that makes it an excellent high school program.

[SnowWhite]

I also know that there are 3-week projects included with the High School programs. There are some pretty good samples up on the website, with more being added all the time (WP has a new tech firm working with them this year).

 

Here's a C&P from the Adventures in the Sea and Sky Older Learner Guide. It's only recommended up to grade 9 though (I was thinking it was good for older HS as well).

 

Three-Week Project Choices:

HANDS ON: Create a Sailor’s Trunk

Details: Create a sailor’s trunk out of wood and leather, as needed. For the inside, create replicas of things a sailor might have carried: a game, letters from home, coins, extra clothing, souvenirs, maps, message in a bottle-type bottle, etc. Make all items appeared aged and/or weathered. Get creative about what might be included, and be prepared to share with your family or co-op details about the seafaring life. This is an important part of your assignment.

CREATIVE: Draw a Detailed Cross-Section of a Ship

Details: You’d be able to find a cross-section book at the library which could serve as your model. Plan to draw with detail a specific type of ship, and color with watercolor paints or colored pencils.

PEOPLE-RELATED: Meet with an Experienced Captain

Details: Track down a local captain and arrange to go aboard his boat so he can show you how the boat works, what factors he needs to be aware of at sea, how he keeps track of weather and other related issues, and the dangers of sea travel. Take pictures of him, his vessel, and other pertinent items. Create a scrapbook of the photos with information you learned interspersed. You may want to make two copies. One for you and one for your kind captain!

GEEKED UP: Create a Computer Model of Eratosthenes’ Method of Measuring the Earth Details: See “Planet Earth,†chapter 1 for information pertinent to this assignment. Then, create a computer program, website or simulation of how he accomplished his feat.

 

Writing Goals:

Captain’s Log Scribblings!

Each week this year you will write a one-page paper on your choice of a fictional account of a voyage, accomplishment, milestone or historic event related to your main studies, or a non-fiction summary of a topic related to development of sail, air or spacebtravel. You’ll be given topic suggestions, but you are always free to pursue a different topic with parental approval of your subject. File each report in your “Timelines in History.†We will refer to these assignments as your “Captain’s Log Scribblings.â€

 

Topic Choices This Week:

Essential Elements of a Sea-Going Vessel

The Science of Buoyancy: How Does a Boat Float?

 

Extra Reading or Resources

Ships: Look Inside Cross-Section by Jonathon Potter, ISBN# 1564585212

The Craft of Sail: A Primer of Sailing, ISBN# 0802772145

An easy introduction to sailing and the forces at work on a sailing vessel. Highly Recommended!

[dragons in the flower bed]

Perhaps WP takes a lighting-the-fire sort of approach to college prep, not being so much a filling-the-bucket or sharpening-the-blade curriculum. I believe this can be as successful. There's a difference between preparing for college and doing college work at home before college. On these boards we often overlook that distinction. AP courses could definitely be placed in the latter category, but we now think of that as college prep.

 

It does seem wildly inappropriate to assign D'Aulaire's Greek Myths in a high school ancients course. I wouldn't do it with my kids. But, I did read just that in 10th grade, went on to read Rosemary Sutcliff's YA adaptations of translations of Homer, and have had no problem reading, analysing and writing about real translations of Plato's Dialogues, Hesiod, and the Orphic Hymns in the study groups I have been part of as an adult. The only reason I wouldn't allow my kids to do D'Aulaire in high school is that foundational knowledge such as that is so useful that it should be in place before kids are ten.

 

WP QRR seems to be an exception to this light literature characteristic. In it, kids are reading Thomas Paine, Shakespeare and Dickens. Maybe WP's next high school programs will continue in that trend.

 

I'm less concerned about the writing in WP. Reports from the WP YahooGroup are that many writing prompts of all sorts are included in the HS instructor's guides. How to write various sorts of essays is covered in the middle grades. To make it college prep you'd simply have to require some of these to be timed. Teaching how to write before high school, and requiring lots and lots of writing (and refinement of that writing) during high school, sounds college prep to me.

 

I would say WP is college prep, but not if you're trying to get into a competitive school, especially if you use the WP LA exclusively.

[siloam]

Perhaps WP takes a lighting-the-fire sort of approach to college prep, not being so much a filling-the-bucket or sharpening-the-blade curriculum. I believe this can be as successful. There's a difference between preparing for college and doing college work at home before college. On these boards we often overlook that distinction. AP courses could definitely be placed in the latter category, but we now think of that as college prep.

 

I would say WP is college prep, but not if you're trying to get into a competitive school, especially if you use the WP LA exclusively.

 

My take pretty much agrees with Rose's. WP is focused on having the child learn to love instead of making sure they hit college running. If you were to treat WP as a base you could add elements that are academically challenging, or substitute/add original works, and logic questions. It wouldn't be open and go, but it wouldn't be from scratch either.

 

WP's niche is hands on and multi level learning. My kids, for example are kinesthetic learners. I started out with SL, but failed to add the crafts and learning activities my kids craved (I am NOT a craft person). When we moved over to WP it was a night and day difference, especially for my 8yo. She went from hating school to enjoying it.

 

The biggest strength is the multilevel learning. Each guide, as far as I know, has a list of additional book that can be used to supplement the program. In my case I used Animals and Their Worlds for my crew (just finished a month ago), and only added Hands of a Child Habitat lapbooks and a few readers they suggesting in the IG to beef it up for my oldest. The American Story 1 program also includes a schedule so that you can read History of the US with it, allowing you to add in older children, or now you can just buy the new American Crossings program. This is different from SL in that the younger program and older level programs actually study the same thing at the same time. Adventures in Sky and Sea have both a younger and older learners guides. These guides tell you which books from the main program to still read to the age group and additional books you can buy, and as I understand it they are all scheduled for you.

 

To be honest WP is better than the training I received for college in Public School (my High School was pathetic). But I also have higher standards and want my kids to hit college running so I am using TOG for history, or I will find a way to do a combo of WP and TOG (for the WP crafts/activities).

 

Heather

 

 

 

 

 

[Tiffani]

Hi Heather,

 

Thanks! I'm glad you posted....we've communicated some on other boards. I, like you, have used SL, TOG, MOH (currently) and now looking at WP simply b/c they use MOH 2 for Middle Ages. ( after 16 weeks w/ TOG I just couldn't handle it any more. ) I'm extremely happy w/ MOH!

 

Sooooo, knowing all that, do you think we'd be disappointed w/ WP? I have all boys. I'm needing more hands-on than SL, not "as" many readers, but more organization than TOG....no, I'm not picky :)

 

Did you like the Animals program w/ WP? I'd like to use it w/ my 7 and 4 yo (next year).

 

What do you think of their LA? I use IEW w/ my older ones, so a weekness in writing is not my concern.

 

Thanks for letting me pick your brain! Sorry if this is choppy...my 4yo is jumping on my chair while I'm typing :)

 

Tiffani

[siloam]

Hi Heather,

 

Thanks! I'm glad you posted....we've communicated some on other boards. I, like you, have used SL, TOG, MOH (currently) and now looking at WP simply b/c they use MOH 2 for Middle Ages. ( after 16 weeks w/ TOG I just couldn't handle it any more. ) I'm extremely happy w/ MOH!

 

Sooooo, knowing all that, do you think we'd be disappointed w/ WP? I have all boys. I'm needing more hands-on than SL, not "as" many readers, but more organization than TOG....no, I'm not picky :)

 

Did you like the Animals program w/ WP? I'd like to use it w/ my 7 and 4 yo (next year).

 

What do you think of their LA? I use IEW w/ my older ones, so a weekness in writing is not my concern.

 

Thanks for letting me pick your brain! Sorry if this is choppy...my 4yo is jumping on my chair while I'm typing :)

 

Tiffani

 

Tiffani,

 

Hi!

 

WP is much closer to SL than TOG. The schedule basically looks the same, including the working on my own pages, the extra information is all in the one week and not in an appendix. The schedule is generally lighter reading...not just not as much reading, but more fun books. Non award winners that some would consider fluff, but are usually my kids favorites.

 

There was only one thing I changed, and it can be done easily (though I didn't do it the easy way ;) ). In AW and AS 1 they schedule small reading portions, but have a bunch of them in a day. Reading out of that many books drove me nuts. So instead we did the schedule horizontally vs. vertically. We chose one book and did a whole week of readings out of that book, thus working horizontally across the schedule instead of down. Of course I redid the whole schedule in Excel, but I did that with SL too (and you begin to see why TOG fits me so well). :D If you are on the yahoo group (WPFamilies) or if you e-mail me I can send you a sample of how I re-scheduled it so you can compare it with the sample pages on the website.

 

The animal study was a hit here. We loved having a new animal every day to learn about, the girls enjoyed the crafts and re-do them and they all have more interest in nature now. We now feed squirrels, have a bird house that was inhabited last year, bird watch with binoculars, ect... Next I we will probably do Sky and Sea, but that might not be for a few years. Right now I need science to be more simple.

 

Their LA I haven't used, because I prefer natural language approaches (and my oldest had great scores). Karen didn't have the same success with SL LA and turned to more traditional resources and saw her kids scores come up. It seems to me that people either love or hate WP LA. One interesting note. They 3 hole punch the LA pages on the opposite side of the history/science pages, so you can file them together and when you open it up you will have you LA on the left side and history/science guide on the right.

 

Their phonics program is also the opposite of SL, using a vertical phonics approach vs. the more traditional short vowels (K), long vowels (1), diphthongs (2) over three years. With vertical phonics (SWR, WRTR, All About Spelling, Phonics Road to reading are vertical phonics approaches) you introduce the a as saying /a/ as in apple, /A/ as in lake, and /ah/ as in father all at once. They do offer a "fast track" phonics package for kids who have been working through a traditional LA but are switching over to WP, so there will be no gap in the child's phonics instruction. I am using both by doing SWR and SL, LOL! Actually I use SL for learning to read and SWR more to fill in gaps and for spelling.

 

The main thing to understand is that because all the letter sounds are introduced earlier WP readers are more advanced. I would place the WP grade 1 readers in between SL grade 2 and 3 LA, being closer to grade 3, but not having chapter books. WP level 2 has chapter books, so would be grade 3 or LA 3 in level, but not up to grade 3-5 (old 2 advanced). Then I would place the WP grade 3 at about the grade 3-5 LA, though it does look like the stick to shorter chapter books, shorter than the 3 advanced books.

 

To be perfectly candid I will probably do at least QAW and TOG year 1 together, especially if I can find a used copy of QAW (a challenge because WP asks you don't sell the IG's. I suspect mostly do to all the dead web links they get calls on, except for 2006 when they allowed it). Mostly I want it for the crafts/activities. TOG activities tend too much towards week long projects, and there aren't enough choices for me. WP is good about providing several choices each day (in the two guides I have seen), and often some with be outright crafts and some will be activities. This works better for me...no better for my 8yo. You see TOG is perfect for my oldest, she loves the state and president cards, the lit and lit worksheets, the mapping. Yet WP is the best fit for my 8yo dd. I suppose I could add my own activities to TOG but I am not an activity person, so I don't schedule them well. I would rather buy the WP schedule and coordinate those two. I love to coordinate.

 

Well life is never boring is it?

 

Heather

 

[Tiffani]

:blink: Wow!!!! You do enjoy tweaking, don't you??

 

Thanks for the reply! It's hard when you have to consider learning styles for each child AND teaching styles.

 

I've also been looking at TruthQuest for lit. info. That's the area I lack!!! I have one ds that would LOVE making something everyday....maybe I'll just buy the Guidebook, a few of the books and the MOH 2 and go w/ that!

 

Soooo, one more q! My oldest is 7th grade (8th next yr). Every time I've "switched" curriculum, I've leaned toward "starting from the beginning". So this is our 2nd (or 3rd ???) time on Ancients. We've never covered a Rome to Reformation time period and we part of core 3 and then 4 (only hitting the hightlights....but I don't feel he's had a "sufficient" American History year).

 

MOH 2 (QMA) seems to spend a long time on that time period....so he'll only get American History 1 more round (probably will take 2 years....you know the thought). I've wondered if I shouldn't skip to American History next year (since I have 3 younger ones) and let my oldest end his high school years w/ World History or just keep going on the track we're on. (And you thought YOU were confusing :ack2:

 

Thanks again!

Tiffani