My Father's World for 7th grader-Explorers-questions!

[Karie]

I can't decide what to do for history...I feel this way every year!! I've got Notgrass on my list, too.

 

I've borrowed a friends MFW Explorers book and I'm wondering about a few things. First of all, it seems too easy for middle school-am I missing something here? Secondly, what about geography? Do you just use the mapwork from the SOTW activity guide?

 

Tell me if I'm wrong here, it seems like MFW is built around SOTW with extra reading. I'm afraid it could be very choppy. This seems okay for my 5th grader, but after doing History Odyssey Middle ages with my older son, MFW seems relatively simple.

 

I wish the home school fairies would come down and tell me exactly what to do!!! Ha!

[Donna A.]

I don't know anything about HO, so I can't compare to that. I'll just share a few thoughts about MFW in particular, and its use of SOTW. In short, no, MFW is not "built around SOTW with extra reading". ;) It's different and more inclusive of other topics. SOTW just happens to be one of the several resources used through the year.

 

Exploring American History is used just as much as SOTW (some weeks just one or the other, and sometimes both are scheduled), and Building a City on a Hill is required for 6th-8th graders.

 

When we did Rome to Reformation last time around, which uses SOTW 2 from about Week 15 on, I bought the SOTW AG to use alongside it. I ended up not liking (or needing) it at all. I like the maps included in MFW better than those in the SOTW AG. MFW has MANY book choices, some scheduled and some for "free" reading from the Book Basket list of approx. 400 titles, some of which are included in SOTW and some not. I like the way MFW does notebooking. I like the extra language arts CM style that are included in MFW (copywork, narrations, dictation, memorization). I like that music of the time period and composer studies are included in MFW.

 

MFW doesn't use the SOTW AG in Exploration-1850. You do the mapwork and notebooking from MFW student pages instead. MFW also includes a study of the states and presidents, which I don't think SOTW AG does? I don't know. MFW does use the AG in 1850-Modern, however, plus other notebook pages. MFW also schedules outlining in the lesson plans in 1850-Modern, whereas prior to that year, outlining is done in separate LA resources. But yes, geography is definitely included in MFW.

 

From the TM in question (Exploration-1850), here's one place where it says in the teacher notes re: SOTW:

 

"Some of the chapters in this book will be read in a different order to make the flow of history more understandable. Chapter 5 will be omitted now and studied later in the year when additional information about Japan is presented."

 

So sometimes MFW schedules things "out of order" from SOTW in order to put things "in order" in the big overview picture.

 

If you have children younger than 7th grade joining in the study, science is scheduled for them in MFW. And with Expl-1850 and 1850-Modern in particular, you have what they call the "Adventures supplement" package for 2nd/3rd graders and below.

 

Each student in MFW always does math, LA, and foreign language at their own level, as well as science from 7th grade up. You can use their recommendations for these subjects or not, but there's room on the weekly grid to write those in no matter what you use. This is helpful for recordkeeping purposes. I photocopy the weekly grid so that each child has her own copy for her own individual subjects to be written in, and then keep that grid in her notebook which also serves as our portfolio for the state.

 

And finally, MFW includes a strong biblical worldview, which SOTW by itself doesn't do. For a family who prefers to do secular history, MFW wouldn't work very well, but for our family MFW fills in what SOTW is missing and covers a broad range of subjects.

[Karie]

Thank you Donna! That was helpful. I don't have the student pages, so I was just going by the teacher manual.

 

Thanks!

[Donna A.]

Yeah, you're not seeing the whole thing with *just* the manual, unless you were to sit down and read through a few weeks' lessons at different points to see just what the assignments are. Try and see the big picture by looking at all the subjects covered in a week's time... here and there throughout the manual. :)

 

You can also get a better idea from the Archives on the MFW forums: http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewforum.php?f=18&sid=0d0477cc48d75270958922579fc27ed2

 

and

 

http://board.mfwbooks.com/viewforum.php?f=28