What's the difference between Sonlight, Beautiful Feet(BF) & My Father's World(MFW)?

[kareng]

I have been using Sonlight (SL) for most of my dd's home school education. But I am considering Beautiful Feet (BF) and My Father's World (MFW). I know about SL but could someone who knows the other two tell me how they compare with SL? If that's not a good question, then perhaps the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 3.

 

My dd is currently in 7th grade so I'd be looking at 8th and up.

[SnMomof7]

Considering MFW for 4th-8th, so I'm eavesdropping. Currently use SL K, 1+2 this fall.

[Pat in MI]

Well, I will attempt this question. I have only used SL for one year and haven't used Beautiful Feet yet but have several of the guides and will be doing a study with dd next year. So I may not be the best to answer this, but maybe this will get the post going. My own personal experience with SL totally overwhelmed me and ds. Too much reading and I personal didn't like having to find all of the questions for each book. It seemed to be a lot of time on one subject. (personal opinion, I know many love SL not trying to get blasted here) MFW has less books and some projects and probably a little more hand holding. They do not however have review questions of the books like SL does. You would do narration. (In the grades before high school) The manual has teachers notes listed after the weekly schedule. The high school program, I believe, has literary analysis and writing components built into the program. (We have not used the high school program) Beautiful Feet from what I see is more of a notebooking approach. You read the book and look up vocabulary words, research various things, (people, how something is done, etc.) copy maps and put them all in a notebook. The guide goes lesson by lesson, no flipping around to find the questions for this book, or reading additional teachers notes. It is more streamlined but your student will do more outside research. This is what I am being drawn to because it has good books and seems less intensive and easier to fit into our schedule. I hope this helped in some way, if only to get others to respond because I'm sure others can explain things better than I can.

Blessings,

Pat

[kareng]

Well, I will attempt this question. I have only used SL for one year and haven't used Beautiful Feet yet but have several of the guides and will be doing a study with dd next year. So I may not be the best to answer this, but maybe this will get the post going. My own personal experience with SL totally overwhelmed me and ds. Too much reading and I personal didn't like having to find all of the questions for each book. It seemed to be a lot of time on one subject. (personal opinion, I know many love SL not trying to get blasted here) MFW has less books and some projects and probably a little more hand holding. They do not however have review questions of the books like SL does. You would do narration. (In the grades before high school) The manual has teachers notes listed after the weekly schedule. The high school program, I believe, has literary analysis and writing components built into the program. (We have not used the high school program) Beautiful Feet from what I see is more of a notebooking approach. You read the book and look up vocabulary words, research various things, (people, how something is done, etc.) copy maps and put them all in a notebook. The guide goes lesson by lesson, no flipping around to find the questions for this book, or reading additional teachers notes. It is more streamlined but your student will do more outside research. This is what I am being drawn to because it has good books and seems less intensive and easier to fit into our schedule. I hope this helped in some way, if only to get others to respond because I'm sure others can explain things better than I can.

Blessings,

Pat

 

Thanks, Pat. I agree about SL being very labor intensive. I have used it beginning with Core 1 up to this year of Core 100. We love the books! That is the very best part for us about SL. I used to try to get ALL of the reading/work done (and that's just Bible, History/Geography & Literature/Reading). When I stressed all of us out so much by trying to do that, I decided that I would do what made sense for us. There is no law that says you have to do everything in any instructor's guide. It took me a long time to get there but I finally got there. :001_smile:

 

With that said, I appreciate what you're saying about less -- fewer books, less intensive. So thanks for your comments. It's a good starting point. :thumbup:

 

Karen

Edited January 21, 2011 by kareng

[walkermamaof4]

we own 6 SL cores and also found it overwhelming at grade level, but love the book choices. just too much too soon for us. this year we are using BF and love the amount of books and the notebooking. we add more books as free reading time choices and also have our olders using SL3 but do no discussion, just have them read it. Others love SL, but for us we can't put that much time in for one subject. As for BF, do they have a true sequential program? it didn't seem like it to me, but this is our first year with it.

[Donna A.]

MFW has less books scheduled throughout the weekly lesson plans, but then they have the *optional* Book Basket for more variety as time and interest allow. Book Basket usually has about 400 titles (give or take) on it, and they're arranged by topic and week # to make it easier on you to find what you're looking for.

 

Very low prep time in MFW, once you get past K and 1st grade. There's a variety of activities to choose from -- some weeks have more and some have less -- and we pick and choose from those activities, not necessarily doing ALL of them ALL the time. It also depends on the kid. Depending on what it is, I may give them a choice and whatever child wants to do the activity can.

 

With everything between 2nd & 8th grades, you can use ONE program with multiple ages. There are both advanced assignments and easy ones in each of those years. K, 1st, and high school are more age-specific because of being in a unique learning stage at those levels.

 

MFW has ONE teacher's manual for ALL the core subjects, including Bible, history and science and some electives. The weekly grid has space for you to write in each individual child's lessons for math and LA, since those are pretty grade-specific. You can choose to use MFW's recommendations for math and LA (instructions at the front of the TM for LA, and Singapore math comes with lesson plans if you buy it from them), or you can do your own thing. While MFW is a multi-aged program for the content subjects, each child will always be at their own level in math and LA, and MFW lesson plans make it very easy to adjust for this. I like to photocopy the weekly grid so that each child has her own so that I can individualize the 3 R's. This serves a dual purpose as I add them to each of their notebooks that they create with MFW, which serves as our required portfolio for the state.

 

Their LA recommendations are based on Charlotte Mason methods, btw. But if you're not a fan of CM style language arts, you can easily use your own preferences for these subjects.

 

Notebooking pages, timeline pieces.... all included in the package you see on the website. Everything you see on the website is scheduled in the weekly plans, but the books on the Book Basket list are not. (Except as they're listed by week # and topic.) I love how flexible MFW is for this!

 

I know that some MFW users buy books from SL to use in lieu of Book Basket. Marie also has some titles recommended for purchase on the list, if using the library isn't an option.

 

There's a short supply list at the beginning of each week so that you can make sure ahead of time that you have all consumables on hand. Non-consumables used throughout the year would be listed in teacher's notes at the front of the TM.

 

Let me see, what else.... love the biblical foundation of MFW, and how it builds in Bible training and discipleship throughout the years. I like seeing how history and Bible "grow" together over time, as opposed to having Bible sitting out here as a separate subject to be done, which may or may not be related to the history you're studying.

[Alyeska]

I am a former Sonlighter and we used P3/4 through core 4. Then we switched to MFW.

 

The main difference I think is the biblical integration of history in MFW. We are really enjoying this aspect of it. Bible IS history...not added on.

 

The second main difference is the small stack of books. :) Sonlight can be very overwhelming because there are umpteen books to read...and that is JUST history! That is where the book basket in MFW comes in handy. IF we have time and IF we want to, we can get extra books from the library. The study of history is complete without the book basket. So it also saves me a lot of angst. If I skip book basket, so what? With SL I couldn't bring myself to skip much at.all. I was worried that we would miss something important in history.

 

We absolutely LOVED our years with Sonlight! I just love books. And yet I am now in love with MFW. It just fits us better at this point in our schooling.

 

Sonlight and MFW are both excellent programs. (and BF has tempted me MORE than once!) Whichever one you choose, you will get a good literature based program with excellent books.

[G5052]

I've used Sonlight and Beautiful Feet through multiple cores/guides, and have weighed MFW at times.

 

I am an "open-and-go" type and we loved Sonlight. I never felt like the books were overwhelming, but I did use cores that were "lower" than my oldest and added more books for individual reading. For me, the schedule was very freeing and helped me focus on other issues outside of homeschooling. We got way more done with Sonlight than anything else I used for history/literature during those years.

 

I've also used Beautiful Feet. We used one last year as a read-aloud guide with no notebooking, and then used two more guides this summer and fall with notebooking. I enjoyed focusing on one book at a time. My kids are so-so with notebooking, but we did it.

 

I used MFW Kindergarten 'way back, but have never used the higher guides. I have one kid who does not like hands-on, and I was concerned that I would not implement the book basket approach effectively. I also don't like some of their American History books as well as I liked Sonlight's choices, so I'm glad we went that way for Amercian History.

 

HTH!

[HollyDay]

I think the biggest difference is that BF is only history and SL and MFW is a complete program with science, math, etc. I had to supplement the BF primary and intermediate guides quite a bit. The Jr High guide is quite full. But, again, it is strictly history. There are comprehension questions and discussions, but no lit analysis or writing instruction. There are writing topics assigned, but no instruction.