ButterfliesandBooks Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 Has anyone used this? Any thoughts appreciated before I hit the buy button! :) Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerPoppy Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 Ooooh, :bigear: very closely for this answer... me, too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 I just bought this a few weeks ago and dd has done the first 2 lessons. She loves it. She loves drawing and doing the projects so it is right up her alley. The lessons are interesting as well. I really liked Ellen McHenry's Chemistry book so I purchased this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michele B Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 I think it is a great buy for the price! Neither dd10 or I find the videos particularly engaging; they are very low-key, but students need to learn from different teaching styles, IMHO. I haven't really used the history/social studies component because we have so much already. I printed out all the drawing lessons and had them spiral bound. dd10 refers to them as she watches the video. I have really been impressed by her drawings so far! You get SO MUCH for the money! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyCamper Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 :bigear: it looks like a great program. I would love to add it, but at this point something else would have to come off the schedule. Would love to hear others experiences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abbeyej Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 It's a fabulous program. :) Definitely worth the money. You can do the whole thing (chronological history of efforts to map the world, projects, drawing), or just use the drawing. As someone else pointed out, you can use the step-by-step drawing lessons in the book or watch the dvds (I love the dvds -- no bells and whistles, but so clear and well-done) or both. It works well at home or even better in a small group or co-op. Really, just an awesome program. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mimm Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 (edited) My fifth grader is doing Mapping the World with Art. She's loving it. I'm not doing the extra activities. I make her read the lesson and watch the video and draw the map. I plan to bind all her maps at the end of the year, and she will have several weeks to do a large world map at the end of the year. I don't know if I will make her do it from memory, at this point I'm thinking probably not. :) I think it would be more valuable to have her do it fairly detailed and reference all the maps she's drawn throughout the year. But we'll see. :) This curriculum is pretty neat, there's a lot you could do with it. We just don't have the time to fit in all the extras right now. ETA: I use the dvds and the drawing lessons both. I make her watch the dvd lesson without drawing. If she drew along with it, she'd just get frustrated. She's the type to rush ahead without thinking. Then I give her the step by step drawing lesson (I call it her cheat sheet) :) and she draws the map from that. Edited September 11, 2011 by Mimm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 We just started this program this school year and love it! It is low key, but well put together. And easy to implement! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrapbabe Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 So if we are studying ancients this year, would this be good to go along with our history studies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 My dd did this last year. She found the drawing lessons a little frustrating because they moved so fast she could barely pause fast enough, but otherwise, we loved it. She learned a lot and enjoyed lots of the activities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 I would love to try this program, but I don't feel like we have time in our day for it. I just posted on the SL boards yesterday how I thought it would be a wonderful addition to Core 5. How much of a time commitment is it? Is it a once-a-week activity or is it something you work on a little bit each day? Thanks! Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 Each lesson takes us about 30 minutes. That is reading the lesson together out loud (my kids need the practice reading out loud still, so we take turns reading paragraph by paragraph the one page lesson), watching the DVD, and completing our maps. There are projects also listed to go with each lesson. So far, I have made the projects optional. One of my daughters has persued them on her own time. The projects do take more time--1 hour or more. The program is set up to be completed in one year, if you complete one lesson per week. In addition to the lessons, we spend about 5 minutes several times through out the week reviewing the maps we've learned to draw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 How much of a time commitment is it? Is it a once-a-week activity or is it something you work on a little bit each day? We read the lesson on Monday or Tuesday and do one of the activities. Dd does the drawing with the video on Thursdays (I work Thursdays so she needs things she can do on her own and she likes this) and Fridays or on the weekends we have been doing other activities that look cool. It would definitely go well with study of the ancients....at least the lessons we have done so far. I like the binding the drawings together idea. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
campmom Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 We are doing US history this year. Would this go along with that well? How does it handle drawing the US? In other words is it drawn all at once or broken down into parts and then put together? We would probably only do the US part this year. Would that work? Thanks for any info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 Each lesson takes us about 30 minutes. That is reading the lesson together out loud (my kids need the practice reading out loud still, so we take turns reading paragraph by paragraph the one page lesson), watching the DVD, and completing our maps. There are projects also listed to go with each lesson. So far, I have made the projects optional. One of my daughters has persued them on her own time. The projects do take more time--1 hour or more. The program is set up to be completed in one year, if you complete one lesson per week. In addition to the lessons, we spend about 5 minutes several times through out the week reviewing the maps we've learned to draw. We read the lesson on Monday or Tuesday and do one of the activities. Dd does the drawing with the video on Thursdays (I work Thursdays so she needs things she can do on her own and she likes this) and Fridays or on the weekends we have been doing other activities that look cool. It would definitely go well with study of the ancients....at least the lessons we have done so far. I like the binding the drawings together idea. Thanks! Thanks for the info. I wonder if we can squeeze another 30 minutes a week in. I will have to see if I can possibly find something else to drop because I have always been drawn to this progam. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButterfliesandBooks Posted September 12, 2011 Author Share Posted September 12, 2011 Thank you all for your really helpful replies. I think I'm going to try it out using the samples, and if that works for us I'll be making a purchase :) . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamolina Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 The website mentions this being best for 5th grade and up. Do any of you use it with youngers and have success with it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 My dd did it in 6th. It took about 30 min 4 days/week. We could have done fewer activities each week and done it in 3 days. Younger kids could come along, but I think it would be frustrating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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