Biblioplan - Have you used it?? Please weigh in!

[jina]

I am looking at using biblioplan for my next cycle. I like that they schedule both SOTW and MOH, they include bible in ancients, church history in Medieval, and include American history in the last 2 years. Sounds great! Looking for feedback from those that have used it...what are your thoughts/experiences?

 

Thank you!

[mom31257]

I am looking at using biblioplan for my next cycle. I like that they schedule both SOTW and MOH, they include bible in ancients, church history in Medieval, and include American history in the last 2 years. Sounds great! Looking for feedback from those that have used it...what are your thoughts/experiences?

 

Thank you!

 

 

:lurk5:

[jina]

OP here...I also see that they have "cool history" weekly worksheets, color pages, mapwork, crafts, timeline pieces and now have added a "parent companion" to help to get deeper with the reading (i think) and give you answers to worksheets and mapwork. I don't remember them having all that available the last time I looked into using biblioplan...that was probably 2-3 years ago, or more. Does anyone have any experience using those resources???? I would like to hear feedback on the extra resources and your assessment of those materials in addition to how the regular "family plan" is/has worked for you.

 

Thank you in advance for any comments you can share with me! :bigear:

[coffeegal]

We used the regular family plan for a couple years, and I enjoyed it. The reading went well, I was able to pick and choose the best level for each child, and it wasn't overwhelming. The packets weren't available when we were using it, but I would have appreciated them if they had been. We stopping using Biblioplan because I felt soo bad during my pregnancy with #5. Anything that was dependent upon me simply did not get done.

[MamaBear]

I have been looking at Biblioplan as well (and MOH) and have found alot of information using the search option. I still have not decided which I will use. I like that BP uses SOTW since we are just about finished with SOTW Vol. 1. One thing that is holding me back from going with BP is there seems to be alot of assigned reading (for us). Also, there is no Parent Companion out for Vol 2, which contains answers and map key, however, I understand part of it will be avaiable this spring - sometime. Anyway, good luck in your search:)

[boscopup]

I would like to hear feedback on the extra resources and your assessment of those materials in addition to how the regular "family plan" is/has worked for you.

 

I'm using Biblioplan Ancients with my first grader. We just started and are on week 3, so haven't been using it very long. Here's my initial assessment and how we're using it right now (understanding that history isn't *that* important for first grade, so I'm not worried if we skip something!):

 

Maps - These have been great so far. I do the writing, but he points out where things are, and I help him if needed. So far they've been easy things like coloring the seas blue, finding the Nile Delta, pointing out Upper and Lower Egypt (you turn the paper upside down to write it! :D), pointing out where Mesopotamia is, etc. All of this info comes straight from what we read in SOTW. I plan to continue using the maps.

 

Cool History Pages - We are using these, though we don't do the questions that come from the Parent Companion readings if we don't know them already (the Biblical history questions he often knows, but some stuff in the PC he wouldn't already know). The main questions are all from your SOTW reading. You do not have to read any other books to answer those questions.

 

Crafts - We are not using the crafts. I have the SOTW AG and am doing one project per week from there. Looking at the two, I decided I'd be more likely to do the AG crafts, especially since the AG tells you all the details of how to do it, whereas BP just kind of says you can make xyz without telling you exactly what supplies are needed or how to go about making it.

 

Timeline pieces - We just started using these yesterday, and my initial observation is that they seem to be in a weird order! Like you'll have some stuff on one page that happens after stuff on the next page. They have placement on the timeline labeled for you, so you pretty much have to use that order if you're using their timeline printout. I find it very confusing. The timeline pieces themselves are nice and colorful. I would prefer to have more text with them like the HTTA pieces have (I am thinking I might use those next year). They *do* have a label and often a year(s) associated with it, so you are able to tell what the pictures are for and all that. So I give the pieces themselves a thumbs up, but the timeline pages to paste them on a thumbs down due to weird chronogical order.

 

Parent Companion - I am not really using this at this point, but I do like having it there for the future when I have older kids. I can also read it myself for a little self-education. It reminds me of the TOG parent pages, except it's not quite as detailed, but it's also not straight from an encyclopedia, so it's more interesting. I consider it "TOG-Lite".

 

Coloring Pages - We did not get these. My son does not like to color, so there was no point in spending money on something we wouldn't use. We just got Bundle #1 which includes the Parent Companion, Timeline stuff, Maps, and Cool History pages. If any of my other boys like to color, I have the SOTW AG to use for coloring pages. I just don't see myself using them.

 

As far as the assigned reading goes... We skip some of the K-2 readers at this point (if my library doesn't have it, we don't read it), and it hasn't hurt us any. So basically, we end up doing SOTW + Bible (since we're doing Ancients). Next year for middle ages, I may end up just doing SOTW + AG by itself, as I'm not really wanting to focus on the church history stuff at this point (we prefer to focus on the first century church as mentioned in the Bible and try to mimic their methods). We'll hit more of the Catholic/denominational church history later when my kids are older.

 

Anyway, if you just read the spine texts for the week, you've covered history. The extra readers are just gravy and not required for understanding of the time period. That's what is nice about it having a good spine like SOTW scheduled. That was one of the reasons I chose BP instead of TOG. My family isn't able to do THAT much reading quite yet. We'll work up to it, hopefully!

[CarrieF]

I'm just ticked at my GOOD FRIEND Jina for getting me all off track and confused by throwing BP into the mix. Thanks a LOT! :lol:

[AngelBee]

I'm just ticked at my GOOD FRIEND Jina for getting me all off track and confused by throwing BP into the mix. Thanks a LOT! :lol:

:lol:

[jina]

I'm just ticked at my GOOD FRIEND Jina for getting me all off track and confused by throwing BP into the mix. Thanks a LOT! :lol:

 

Ha! But you know you're happy we are getting some good data to help us plan our next cycle! :)

[JoyinIndo]

Thanks Jina for starting this thread. I, too, have my eye on this curriculum for next year. It seems a great way to do all ages of my kids together. I am anxious to hear from others who have done it with multiple kids.

 

Blessings,

JoyinIndo

[Sweet Home Alabama]

From Boscopup

 

Timeline pieces - We just started using these yesterday, and my initial observation is that they seem to be in a weird order! Like you'll have some stuff on one page that happens after stuff on the next page. They have placement on the timeline labeled for you, so you pretty much have to use that order if you're using their timeline printout. I find it very confusing. The timeline pieces themselves are nice and colorful. I would prefer to have more text with them like the HTTA pieces have (I am thinking I might use those next year). They *do* have a label and often a year(s) associated with it, so you are able to tell what the pictures are for and all that. So I give the pieces themselves a thumbs up, but the timeline pages to paste them on a thumbs down due to weird chronogical order.

 

 

I could not have said it better myself. We're using BP Ancients with kids in 2nd, 5th, and 7th grades. The order of the TL was right on most of the time, but frustrating as soon as it broke from the chronological order.

 

Pros: Cool History and Maps These are wonderful. We use SotW with Cool History. I bought the coloring pages, but my 2nd grader isn't al all interested.

 

Cons: Timeline and Parent Companion

 

I need to qualify my answer. The PC might be useful for others. For us, we started out the year reading all the information for each week. My kids only heard me go on and on and on. It just became boring. If we had used it in a different way, maybe it could have been a better experience.

 

A heads-up: From my experience, if you use BP for Ancients and you want to learn ancient history within the scope of Biblical history you really have to make a deliberate effort to link these things together. I think MOH is a wonderful way to link these. Now, about once a week, I pull out the Homeschool in the Woods TL cards and ask my kids to call out each card in order. (An idea borrowed from Veritas Press history flash cards).

 

I think overall chronological order vs. chronological order by continents (is this right?) messed me up. As I sat planning 2nd semester during Christmas break, BP looked very confusing to me. I could not find the thread that linked ancient history to Biblical history.

 

I ended up dropping the TL. We use Homeschool in the Woods TL cards now. I also dropped the Parent Companion. In its place, we are reading Diana Warings History Alive. I bought her CDs to go with BP. (I borrowed the DW text from a friend. We've also started English from the Roots Up.

 

Let me say that the staff at BP is just wonderful. I emailed my concerns, and they Quickly began to help me solve them.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Sweet Home Alabama

[Free Indeed]

I only have a minute, but wanted to chime in and say we use Biblioplan and really like it. It is structured enough for me, but flexible as well. They have good book selections, but we can pick and choose. It has been my most successful year.

[Joker]

I really like BP. I've used it this year with SOTW 2 and its gone so great I have already purchased BP to use with SOTW 3 starting in June. I don't stick to their reading schedule because it would be too easy to start feeling "behind". Instead I pick which ones I want to do and alter it on their schedule. I really like the writing assignment questions for each week. It helps me make sure they are using their writing skills across the curriculum. The book selections they give have been a big hit, too. Older dd read through her entire year's selection in just four months. I haven't used the new workbooks and companions since we use the AG. HTH!

[Ali in OR]

We are on our second cycle of Biblioplan, so that should say something about how much we like it! That said, we just use the reading schedule and not all of the new extras. For the first 3 years, we used the SOTW AG for maps. Since we didn't use the AG for year 4 (no coloring pages, skewed to older kids), I did use the Biblioplan maps for that year. I found it a bit difficult to figure out when to use them, and I think my frustration with that points to why I'm not using their extras.

 

The original Biblioplan is a fantastic book list and schedule for studying world history. It was put together before SOTW, so it does not correlate exactly (and I much prefer the way Biblioplan stays with one culture for an extended time instead of staying strictly chronological). You can use Biblioplan with various different books for spines, not just SOTW. MoH is an option, and for older kids you might just use the Cultural Atlases and Famous Men books. There will be several weeks every year where you will not be reading from SOTW because it doesn't touch on that week's topic (SOTW is very light on the Nation of Israel, the Renaissance, and the Civil War for instance). Yet I believe that all of the new "extras" are correlated with SOTW. We would have had a much easier time using maps that were tied to the theme for Biblioplan that week rather than a particular chapter of SOTW. Some maps were labeled as going with several different chapters of SOTW or different weeks of reading and I just found them difficult to use. SOTW is just one source of history for us, and given that Biblioplan does not schedule SOTW straight through, I can see why people get confused with the materials. I wish they had made the extra materials just based on the theme for that week.

 

To me, the strength of Biblioplan is the book list and schedule. We have learned so much. I chose to go with Biblioplan again after looking closely at ToG. Biblioplan is a ton of reading, especially in years 3 and 4 when you are covering world history (everything in SOTW) as well as a lot more American history than is in SOTW. You don't choose Biblioplan if you don't love reading and learn best by reading (as opposed to hands-on activities). We have had a very rewarding experience with Biblioplan and history is our favorite subject.

[jina]

Thanks for the responses and input!!!

 

Addressing the "frustration" or confusion or whatever word Ali used in the post above regarding the maps...I think I read somewhere that due to their customer response for needing direction in that area, they created the "parent companion". It is my assumption that if you bought/use the PC that it would probably be clearer??? Does anyone else know? I thought the PC was supposed to include answers to the worksheets and other guidance.

[boscopup]

The maps for ancients are very clearly marked as to which week they belong, and the answers are in the parent companion. They've been very easy to use. The mapwork directly correlates to the SOTW readings... at least so far (week 4).

 

I don't know if the PP was using an older version or if the time period she was using wasn't laid out as nicely as ancients is?

[monalisa]

I've used BP year 2 this year for a 2nd grader, along w/ SOTW 2 and the SOTW 2 AG (I personally like the SOTW maps for this age). We just finished week 15. I'm not using the other components, because the updated/new things (like PC) aren't available yet. The BP Year 2 I have is the revised version. I really like having more church history than SOTW2 alone. I'm planning to order BP Year 3 for next year. Their books selections are good, and I don't stress out about the few I haven't been able to find from the library. It may be a little overkill for a single 2nd grader but I like having the book list broken up in a bit more manageable way than SOTW AG has it (and I almost always like the BP book choices; not always true with the SOTW AG). We sometimes do the AG activities. If the Cool History packet had been available at the beginning of the school year, I probably would have used it. I wish the Parent Companion was available now, but it will probably come out too late for this year. I will probably get it for next year.