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Thinking of changes...and thought I'd get some thoughts


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Hello,

I have been swamped lately with, well, you know - school! And I also run a small, in-home daycare...all the other stuff we all get into, of course. However - school has finally really gotten a better rhythm for us. Seriously - the first two years we home schooled, a doctor's appt caused us to throw in the towel on the entire day of school work - even if the appt didn't take that long. Now - things are smoother and my daughter actually had a cavity filled this morning & we still got home and did most of our school work!! Yay!

 

What is really nice is that they are working more independently now. My daughter is 8 & my son is 12. We have used MFW for 3 years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. At the beginning, I could NOT have imagined trying to plan out our day without the guide - and theirs has been easy for me to follow or tweak - whatever worked best for us. But lately - I'm having to create a grid planner for each child completely separate - not that I mind - this has made things MUCH smoother. Instead of waiting for me to show them what to do - or trying to mark a dry erase board - I have been filling in a planner with all of their subjects at the beginning of the week. They complete & check off what they can do on their own and we have scheduled times to sit down together on the things we do together. What I am finding is that I almost don't use MFW guide at all after I recreate it on Monday, other than for page numbers on our reading we do together.

 

Then - next year - my dd is supposed to do botany in Ex to 1850, but we have an wonderful mom @ co-op who taught it this year to her age group and was very thorough. I don't really want to teach it again when there are so many other great choices she could use that she hasn't had yet. My son goes into General Science & won't use any of the science materials that come with MFW's pkg. I will be purchasing the pkg for history & bible only. And to make that not seem appealing - I have been blessed with gifts or finding great deals & I have a wonderful array of books where I could virtually have a wonderful year continuing history without that expensive purchase. I have Kingfisher's History of the World, along with dozens of other books on the last two periods we need to study for our chronological study. I have tons of great books to read too. I guess the big pkg has lost it's appeal as my library shelves have become more full!

 

My thoughts are to use something like Story of the World as a spine & fill in with what I have, choose a good science program for each, and I'm thinking about changing language arts stuff. I'm ok with Spelling Power - but not totally loving it - and I feel the same with ILL & PLL. (Plus my son finishes ILL this year.) I already have math for my daughter & I'm not sure whether I'm going with Saxon as MFW recommended or I will try something new. I have a few math curriculums that I just keep thinking might be a little better for him. Phew - this was longer than I intended. Any thoughts on this change - maybe someone else who has sort-of moved beyond MFW, which I did not think I would do. (Or someone else that used another curriculum that was more planned out and is doing their own planning now.) Thanks for your advice.

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I've used "all-in-one" curricula and have moved away from that. It's actually really liberating, being able to plan your own thing instead of staying (more or less) and buying an expensive package, especially if you know you aren't going to be using the whole thing. I plan the whole year week by week and keep the list on my computer so I can tweak as necessary. Having a weekly schedule ensures we stay on track while still having some flexibility for days when we have too much other stuff planned to do regular school work.

 

You can see what I'm doing with my 8 (almost 9! :svengo:) year old daughter in my signature. I'd look around on the logic boards to see what others are doing with kids your son's age.

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Thanks Aurelia! I am so torn - I do feel like I will feel liberated by the release of the big pkg...but I also like that their history has a great deal of resources that cover multiple events differently. For instance, when we read Streams of Civilization & Story of the World, and and Usborne book - one might cover something more in depth than another. I think that is the main thing I have concerns is maybe not covering topics so well that we have until now. However - on the other hand - it's starting to feel so dry just looking at a page number & reading it. Plus - it skips around so much. I'm truly thinking that reading SOTW in order & finding things off our shelf or in our library to add in would be good - plus I think I can get extras with SOTW that may make it more full & engaging.

 

I am just finding so many great resources that it's so hard to choose! But by the time I get MFW & the science I need for my kiddos in EX to 1850 - I would spend $781!! (Next year will mean extra LA materials since my son is 7th grade & extras for my daughter in 2nd/3rd supplement, plus both needing to replace extra science.) OUCH. Thanks again for your comments.

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