Winter Promise

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

Tell me about your experiences with WP-

[Mamabyrd]

I used WP American Story 1 last year with a 1st, 3rd, and 7th grader. It was a great year.

 

I loved that it was adaptable for multiple ages. I think they may have changed some things but when we used it they had a middle grade add on and/or a schedule for Joy Hakim's History of US series. This made it possible for me to combine history with my kids.

 

I'm not "crafty" but my kids like hand on activities. WP listed all the activities and rated them according to difficulty. I felt I had permission to pick and choose what would work for my family, if that makes sense. I did not feel as if I had to do everything. My kids enjoyed the books. Some of the websites and DVD selections were quite good, too.

 

I did not use WP's language arts.

 

The kids with whom I used WP were not home schooled this year (only my 5 year old remained home this school year). Next year, however, I will have a kindergartner, 3rd, and 5th grader at home and we will be doing WP American Story 2.

[plansrme]

We used WP AS I and are using AS II when school starts back. We also used it a 2nd grader and a middle-schooler. The MS'er used Joy Hakim's Story of US with it, along with Sonlight's discussion questions for the series. The 2nd grader used WP exclusively. She enjoyed and learned a lot from the crafts, especially the 3-D maps.

 

It is a fairly thorough study of history, and we all learned a lot. I love the way the instructor's guide is laid out--it's very easy to open-and-go. The read-aloud schedule is not the least bit overwhelming. Though there are often several books each day, the selections reinforced each other, so it wasn't all new information. We often broke up the reading by taking turns doing the read-alouds.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Terri

[dragons in the flower bed]

Tell me about your experiences with WP-

 

This may turn into an epic.

 

I used American Story 1 with a 6yo and an 8yo for half of a school year. The kids found the spine text deadly dull (WP has since replaced it) and we grew weary of paper crafts (they've since taken out many of them). I was frustrated with trying to explain U.S. history to little people who had no classics for reference, so we did the rest of the year on the ancients.

 

Then I started to use The World Around Me, over the summer. It was a great way to learn how to keep a nature notebook, and get over the trepidation that can cause. But the experiments required too many random supplies and it was getting to be a ridiculous addition to our weekly budget. (WP has since begun selling supply kits.) So a few weeks in we began to just enjoy the books, free style, not using the lesson plans. My kids count those books amongst their favorites.

 

Are you seeing a theme yet? Our experience with CATW the next year (this last) was better, because I was stubborn. I was determined that we would not quit in the middle. We dropped some resources (the Personal Involvement Journal) because my kids were too little to call around and find a place to volunteer, or because they were not well thought out (Draw Your World). They have since made changes to Draw Your World to make it more user-friendly, and are no longer recommending their resources for such young kids. We loved most of it, especially CoML, the Travel Diary, and the cultural experiences book. And the map, although most people didn't (and they've since made that better). We ended up getting into the geography habit in a serious way, with the kids asking about places, being attuned to the mention of places, and wanting to look places up in their books and make notebook pages about them. At one point we started branching off into countries the kids wanted to learn about . . . and stopped following the CATW lesson plans altogether.

 

I've yet to learn my lesson, as I've ordered their newest resource, Hideaways in History, for my K'er for next year. It just so perfectly corresponds with what the new LCC recommends for K & 1st grade. I have got to stop ordering programs that are new this year, 'cause they always get better the next year. This time I only ordered the two parts I absolutely needed, not the whole program. I'm not going to try to stubbornly do it all. I'm going to give my craftsy K'er the option of doing the fun parts, and let him go at it if that's what he wants to do.

 

Will I continue using their stuff? The notebooking pages, probably. Their Timelines in History, definitely. Might use Draw Your World when the kids are bigger. So, piecemeal, yes, but I don't see us using a whole WP package again.

[jenn&charles]

I used WP last school year:

AS2 for our history/core and Animals & Their Worlds for science.

We had an awesome year.

 

Otter LOVED nearly all of the books.

I loved the IG, activities, user friendliness, etc.

 

The materials were very age appropriate, engaging, colorful, fun, interesting, etc.

Because of this and because of the activities and optional crafts (we didn't do all of them, but picked some out to do based on time available and interest), Otter really retained what he was learning so much better than when we've used other programs.

 

Now we have Children Around the World sitting on the shelf and I've had to keep the kids away from the books because they are so great.

 

I'm just very happy with WP. We had one of our best years last year thanks to them!

 

Let me know if you have any specific questions.