MFW Adventures vs HOD Beyond for 2nd Grade

[1shortmomto4]

I'm really trying to find something for 2nd grade for next year for my youngest ds who will be entering 2nd. I tried combining WP AS1 with his older brother but that was a bust. I am not sure whether it was necessarily over his head or just not engaging enough (i.e., hands-on). My 4th grade ds does not enjoy hands-on projects so we tend to just read the books, discuss and move along (the whole AS 1 is a subject of its own and my humble opinion). I've done the Beyond program once before and once you get past the weeks on end of pilgrim stuff, it goes great but getting there....This ds, once engaged in learning, loves learning but the key is hooking him. I like HOD and I think my 5th grader will do Preparing and dd will do RTR beefed up for high school, but really struggling with what would work for my youngest. I love the idea of having everyone doing the same history but that doesn't work for my family so they all need their own "thing." I've been looking at MFW Adventures and it looks like a lot of fun but not sure how it might compare to HOD in a daily set up - how much time is involved? I've been drawn to the MFW bookbasket idea - I like having the variety of finding things that interest us with regards to a subject rather than a set list like SL or WP. I thought about using MFW RTR for my 2 youngers but worried that once again, I'd lose the interest of the youngest fellow and not sure my 5th grader is ready for Streams of Civilizations. Any thoughts or ideas?

[zookeeperof3]

We've used both programs. ( I have 3 kids, 11 yo boy, 9 yo girl and 3 yo boy.)We prefer MFW. HOD has a lot going for it, daily plans for every subject, poetry, step by step narration techniques....but my son and I became tired of all of the paper projects and in the later guides you make a book mark every week or a crown every week, a painting every week. It's the same craft every week of the year, we really burned out on it. I didn't like feeling tied down to her recommended books for reading time.HOD is very skill specific ( age wise) so it is hard to combine kids of different ages/abilities. I am grateful to HOD for teaching me how to do narrations, this was before I found TWTM.

 

I like MFW for the ease of combining the kids and for the flexibility of the book basket. I find that MFW recommendations for English ( Primary & Intermediate Language Lessons) cover very nicely the CM method by dictation, narration , poetry and art appreciation. It's also less expensive. Also, MFW meshes well TWTM/Classical education with Charlotte Mason and unit studies all into one curriculum. I LOVE that MFW has my kids listening ( and enjoying) classical music and hands on art along with art appreciation.Adventures was a fabulous year ( we just finished). We start ECC next week, because my kids are begging to start it!

 

I hope that helped you some! Both are great programs with their good and bad points. personally, I feel that MFW is easier to implement with different age groups, and still leaves me time to do things that I want to do.

Blessings,

Kim

[Donna T.]

Overall, I much prefer HOD and have found it to be a better fit for our family. I have used a few years of MFW in the past. This was our first year with HOD. I love HOD.

 

But, in comparing those two particular programs, for a second grader, I think I prefer Adventures. The names of Jesus study is so sweet. I enjoyed the music that year. The history is much broader than the history in Beyond. The book basket is a great way to get a beginning or newly fluent reader interested in reading on their own. There are lots of picture books in the book list. Many of them are just at the right level for a second grader to read on their own. I prefer the teaching style of Beyond and I think HOD does a better (this is my opinion) of actually instructing the child in particular skills. I think Beyond followed by Bigger Hearts gives a very well-rounded and in-depth study of American History. But, just comparing Beyond and Adventures, not factoring in all that Bigger Hearts would add over the course of the two years, I'd say I'd have to prefer Adventures. It's a fun program.

 

We did Little Hearts (just the Bible, History, Storytime, Dramatic Play/Thinking Games) for 2nd grade but my son has tagged along with Preparing with my 5th grader, also. I have really loved teaching these two programs together. They mesh together very well. My 2nd grader has enjoyed Preparing but having Little Hearts as something to do just with him while my oldest son completed his independent work in Preparing has been wonderful.

Edited May 13, 2010 by Donna T.

[1shortmomto4]

Donna - I'm considering going back to HOD for all three kids but the Adventures program just looks so neat - but after reading your post it brought up a question - if I were to do Bigger the following year - would that make a difference in the advice with regards to Adventures over Beyond?

 

Financially I'm not sure I can even swing the Adventures - I need to buy my ds a math program that is going to work for him - the last missing puzzle piece for his curriculum for next year - so I need to add up numbers and justify my spending (ugh!). I have most of Beyond sitting on a shelf - minus a few books (science, Pilgrim stories and read-alouds). I wish he could do Preparing along with bigger brother but I just think it would be over his head. He is a very different learner than my other kids and I'm still trying to figure him out!

[MrsMe]

I agree with Donna. We enjoyed MFW Adventures to Beyond. Beyond stayed too long on one subject. But I ended up meshing them together. We stopped Beyond in Unit 13, then used MFW Adventures instead picking up where we left off in Pioneer and Patriots.

 

We're doing Bigger now and we enjoy it. It's a good overview of biographies. We enjoyed MFWK, hated MFW1st, disliked HOD Beyond (because of the main spine), loved MFW Adventures, but we're back with HOD for the rest.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

I'm torn between HoD and MFW as well but we're just starting out from the very beginning so our situation is slightly different. I have benefited from reading the thoughts in this thread though. :)

[Donna T.]

Donna - I'm considering going back to HOD for all three kids but the Adventures program just looks so neat - but after reading your post it brought up a question - if I were to do Bigger the following year - would that make a difference in the advice with regards to Adventures over Beyond?

 

 

 

Well, of course this is all just my opinion, but I think if you intend to use Bigger Hearts for 3rd grade, that it would be best to just stick with Beyond for 2nd grade. Since you have used Beyond before, you know that one of the most important things that the child is led through that year is how to narrate. I really love how with HOD each guide teaches specific skills that should be addressed before going into the next guide. I know there are some who have used Adventures and then used Biggers (you may want to ask about that on the HOD yahoo group) and I'm sure it does work out fine. But, Beyond is specifically intended to prepare the child for Bigger Hearts, so I think I'd go that route if I was pretty sure I'd be using Bigger Hearts later on.

 

Also, since you will have three children in three different programs, it seems to me that it would be easier on you to use Beyond. Beyond covers less history overall but what is covered is covered in-depth (maybe too much for some, I guess) and you will have all that you need on hand. When I used Adventures, I was not satisfied with the history content as it was taught with the materials used... what I mean is that I didn't think it flowed together very well, there was just little snippets of information provided, and it is necessary, in my opinion, to use the book lists in the TM to flesh out the lessons. There were many weeks when that was fun to do. But, there were other weeks when it was a drag to have to accumulate materials from the library or to buy other books to add to the program. Some users do not do that and I have read that others think you don't really need to use the book lists at all, but to me, that was the whole point of using Adventures. So, it may be more work for you to use a program that is set up that way rather than one like Beyond where you will have all of your materials on hand.

 

I know you are trying to consider how your little one learns best. There does seem to be more variety with Adventures but Beyond does a good job of focusing the child on what is really important at that level, in prep. for future HOD guides, i.e., oral narration. Also, the copywork in Beyond is meant to led the child quite naturally to the more lengthy copywork required for the additional notebooking in Bigger Hearts. So, you get that gradual progression that comes in several skill areas when using Beyond first and then Bigger Hearts. You get a layered effect.

 

Did you enjoy the Storytime lessons in Beyond? They look like alot of fun.

[1shortmomto4]

Thanks so much for responding - I appreciate the dialogue! My ds that used Beyond was in 2nd grade that year. We actually started in halfway through the year as we had been using WP Animal Worlds and couldn't deal with yet another animal! We had a lot of fun and he is not into hands-on but it went well. We loved the story time assignments - and he really learned a lot that year. For whatever reason, the following year (last year), I didn't go with Bigger but went with SL Core 1 with a combo of SOTW 1 (my two older kids were studying Ancients so that kept in the same time zone so to speak) and it went well but still not the fun we had in HOD. When I did HOD I was taking pictures and capturing memories. My youngest was just tagging along in the science and art projects but had so much fun. There are actually pictures of the two of them in the Beyond books HOD made for the conventions. I appreciated last year in being in the same time zone - that helped ME a lot but the year wasn't as full as I had hoped. This year I went back to HOD with Bigger and tried Little Hearts for my ds for 1st. That was a flop! We had a hard time getting into the Eggleston books but probably should have stuck with it - I was also trying to push the extensions but my ds just didn't need that much "extension" at this point. And my youngest was too far advanced for Little Hearts but nowhere near ready for Beyond. We went with AS 1 from WP and I've not been able to get a good groove all year and my youngest just disappears when it comes time to read the books - not engaging him at all. I like being able to teach in the same time zone, so to speak, but I also prefer teaching my kids at their levels rather than 1 program and each child can fend for his own, kwim? I really like the skills taught in HOD - it is not just reading a history book, doing a craft or filling out a notebook sheet but they learn how to use the information - research, vocabulary, outlines, narration, etc. I'm really torn on what to do next year. Can I really handle 3 HOD guides (granted 1 child will be doing most on her own but I'll have to check up on her to be sure the work is being done! - Learned that the hard way with my high schooler)? Hmmmmm....