Has anyone switched from Sonlight to MFW???

[mamananci]

My dd is in 9th grade. It is her first year homeschooling in a long time and she is doing it herself (she lives with a host family so she can dance ballet).

 

She is currently doing Sonlight ALT 7, but I'm thinking of switching her to MFW next year. The writing in Alt 7 is about a 7th grade level.

 

Has anyone done this? Do you have any advice for me?

:grouphug:

[Debbie in IL]

We did! Switched last year - we did SL Core 6 & 7 in one year - don't ask ;) - and switched to MFW for her freshman year. We loved SL but were just ready for a switch for high school. So far, everything has been good. The adjustment to a new curriculum hasn't been as difficult as the adjustment to high school expectations. The workload is heavy - about 3 hours a day for MFW alone, more if there is a writing assignment. Let me know if you have other questions - I'll be offline until this evening, but I'll check back then.

 

Deb

[LatinTea]

We changed over too. I used most of Sonlight's cores, from 2 through 400. I loved the books, but the IGs just bogged me down. Especially in the high school cores!

 

My ds, a very good student, never could wade through all those pages and pages of information in the IG. He barely made it through all the assigned reading. I stuck with SL for him, but wish he had done something else. My dd is now doing the Ancients with MFW. I know her and I know she could not handle SL's high school cores written TO the student. There is just too much in there. And she needed a bit more spiritual guidance this year so I thought AHL fit the bill nicely for her.

 

MFWs guides are way less intimidating. In my perfect world though, I would like their guide to have a bit more information about what my dd is reading (maybe I'm just spoiled by SL!) . Just a few more comments, but not like there is in SL. History, bible and lit just can't take 5 hours every day when the student is in high school. I like that MFW does all this in less time.

 

I wouldn't be concerned about the writing aspect. Sonlight still needs to figure out how to teach writing to high school students! Language Arts has always been their weak spot. MFW is okay in this regard. Actually, I like their stuff better. It is more to the point and not 'out there'. They use a somewhat edited form of Smarr's writing guide for instruction. I would say it is adequate, not amazing, but useful. MFW has many writing assignments. I DO like the lit writing assignments. They help the student analyze what the author had to say and help the student dig biblically into the questions. The main lit questions are only comprehension, but Smarr has a few critical thinking ones in each lesson that are very good. I am concentrating on those (along with the end of the lesson larger writing assignments) instead of the comp ones.

 

Also, SL has the student read the bible throughout all the cores, but I like that AHL focuses on the Old Testament and WHL on the New Testament. I don't like the choice of the extra biblical books in MFW though, but those are easily changed. We are subbing Do Hard Things for one of the books and have deleted another one.

 

I own SLs 200 core from a few years ago when it wasn't so BIG, and am still debating on changing back to that when we get to WHL. The reason being is that I like the bible study books better than those in WHL. And I am not sure if I want to race through the rest of World history in a year and then do 2 years of American history. I like the idea of combining the 20th century, World and American, so I'm a bit torn on this too. (**See my post below on this**)

 

I am hoping that by the time next year rolls around, SL will have satisfactorily addressed the many issues with their high school cores so I might be able to consider them yet again. Did I say how much I love their books? :)

Edited October 19, 2010 by LatinTea
Edited to add *See my post below on this* in regards to Donna's reply

[Donna A.]

My dd will be finished with AHL by January, and then we'll move into WHL. I chose MFW over SL a long time ago for many of the same reasons already listed. I just felt SL was *too much*, and yet not enough in some ways (even at the elementary level). Too many books for *required* reading, for one thing. I prefer the way MFW integrates biblical history and discipleship into their programs. I don't know if or how much SL does scripture memorization, but MFW does a LOT. One thing I like about how MFW does it over some textbook Bible curriculums I've seen is that you don't just memorize single verses out of context... you memorize whole passages, and one year in elementary you even memorize a whole book of the Bible. It just seems to be a different emphasis than other programs I've seen.

 

Like the pp, I did some tweaking with the extra-biblical books in AHL. Just personal preferences there... but the Bible lessons and projects in the manual are great. What my dd ended up doing was just following their Bible reading schedule so that those readings would be coordinated with the history and lit lessons, and then did the assignments in the manual. She also read Do Hard Things by the Harris brothers, Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, Stepping Heavenward, and a few others.

 

I do want to point out the reasons for doing two years of American history in h.s. The second year of that is focused on modern times, the world wars, the changes in America's economic structure, politics, socialism, etc. They go hand in hand, so you really need to spend a good bit of focused time on that (IMO). And that part is only going to be one semester, anyway, not the whole year.

 

The student will also receive transcript credit for Geography and Economics that year, so it's not *just* American history. I'm looking forward to it myself, as *I* want to study along with her! :D

 

I also like how MFW includes writing instruction for the assignments. She did several comparative essays this year, as well as an argumentative paper first week out of the gate. Next year she'll do a research paper, at least. Some grammar is included, but my dd also did Easy Grammar Plus as review because she needed the extra reinforcement. (Annoying subject for her. ;) )

[Donna A.]

Oh, and it takes my dd about 3 hours (give or take) to do Bible, History, and English in MFW. She does additional reading on her own time because she's such an avid reader, and I think you could easily add some titles from SL if you wanted to. But if my dd doesn't get to any of that extra reading, it's okay because I know she's doing sufficient work in MFW for the credit.

 

She does Apologia science and Saxon math, plus her electives, and she gets everything done in a week despite also being out of the house for 4 hours of ballet, a 5-hour babysitting job on Wednesdays (she does take work with her to do while the baby's sleeping), piano, and church activities & ministry. She's motivated, though... she gets up at 6:30, and then willingly heads back down to the school table after she gets home if she needs to finish up something (unless she's just too tired). She does catch-up work on Fridays, and *rarely* needs to do a bit of homework over the weekend. Before we started all these activities and having to stop working to head out the door, she was done with ALL her academics by early to mid-afternoon. But then she wasn't getting up at 6:30, either. :tongue_smilie:

[LatinTea]

I do want to point out the reasons for doing two years of American history in h.s. The second year of that is focused on modern times, the world wars, the changes in America's economic structure, politics, socialism, etc. They go hand in hand, so you really need to spend a good bit of focused time on that (IMO). And that part is only going to be one semester, anyway, not the whole year.

 

The student will also receive transcript credit for Geography and Economics that year, so it's not *just* American history. I'm looking forward to it myself, as *I* want to study along with her! :D

 

 

 

Thanks, Donna, I almost went back and changed my post earlier on that part! But I was fading fast (have a nasty cold). Anyway, yes MFW does do more than just American History in those two years. Government, Economics, Worldview, and some Geography mixed in and I'm glad to hear that the second part is focused on those issues. I wish MFW would get a pdf up for that 3rd year so I can see how it is laid out better. World history (now interwoven with American history) will probably then be gone over once more. Sounds good to me!

Edited October 19, 2010 by LatinTea