Biblioplan, TOG, Wayfarers, MOH, or other for ancients?

[jwoodbri]

Starting back up with school soon for our 6th, 4th, 2nd, and K'er. We started off 5 years ago using SOTW for ancients and medieval. We absolutely loved it but I needed more time to teach so I switched my older kids to VP self-paced for renaissance and modern. Kids loved that too, but I missed being involved and reading with them. For this round of ancients I didn't want to stick with VP as it divides ancients into two years and I'd really like to be more involved again. I'm thinking SOTW for at least the 2 youngest and then something a bit beefier for my oldest. MOH maybe? Guerber history listed in Wayfarers? Something about TOG keeps pulling me back to look at it. Love combining all the kids together I know. I think Biblioplan might do that as well though. And I love the sound of Wayfarers but I haven't heard many reviews about it.

 

What are your favorite altogether, great book reading, ancient history programs?

 

Thanks!

[PeachyDoodle]

It's not as popular as some of the others, but we have really enjoyed Pandia Press's History Odyssey. For that age range, you'd need two different levels (Level I is 1st-4th-ish and Level II is 5th-8th) but you might find that you could have your olders do the writing, etc. from Level II and incorporate your youngers by reading aloud from SOTW and the HO books and/or doing hands-on projects together. It's been awhile, but I think HO and SOTW would pair pretty easily.

 

 

[KrissiK]

I'm doing History Odyssey: Ancients by Pandia Press with dd this year. I bought Mystery of History, but when I started looking through it, it was too disjointed. I know she tried to do everything chronologically, but it just seemed to jump around too much. I also didn't think it was meaty enough for a fifth grader. The readings were short and I thought a lot of the activities were kind of dumb. Maybe not for the younger set, but in upper elementary, I wanted my daughter to have a little more content. HO does a little more of a complete study of each of the ancient civilizations.

 

I did tweak it, though. I took out the History Pockets, which I think are kind of lame, and replaced those with some of the Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome, as well as a couple of Jackdaw Portfolios (King Tut and Hadrian's Wall). She's also not going to do all the writing assignments. We're doing writing in other aspects of our day and I didn't want her to get bogged down. Some people don't like the The Story of Mankind book. So far, I haven't minded it. Though I think in some newer editions of this curriculum the folks at Pandia Press have removed that book.

Edited August 18, 2016 by KrissiK

[PeachyDoodle]

HO removed the History Pockets, too, at least in the Level II guides. Which is a good thing, IMO.

 

Story of Mankind is optional. I can't remember what their suggested replacement is -- maybe just using the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia? If you are using SOTW, that would probably be enough. Story of Mankind is similar in its approach. We haven't had any objections to it either.

 

We like to start with primary sources in middle school, so for dd I use Stanford's Reading Like a Historian. Very little prep and free! But probably not for most younger kids. Great for olders, though.

[Hunter]

MOH gets more and more expensive every year. If you want to use it all the way through, check the price of year 4. The TOG software version is a nightmare to use.

 

Wayfarers is an easy download that can be viewed on any device. The price is affordable all the way through. The author is an amazing person and in the trenches still homeschooling real kids both gifted and "behind". And she somehow still has time to write. And write good stuff. She is a truly rare woman who impresses me greatly.

 

Another new curriculum on the market that I am impressed with is Layers of Learning. Years 1-3 are done and I am fully expecting year 4 to get completed. I use the downloads as a digital reference set and am really looking forward to owning year 4, too.

 

I'm not easily impressed by new anymore, but these ladies get my 100% recommendation over MOH and TOG. LoL isn't classical, so if you are looking at classical I'd go with Wayfarers over LoL. LoL is more hands on and less reading, and has it's place in the homeschool market. And as a backup resource for mostly eBook families that cannot own a large home library it has zero competition.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Hunter

[jwoodbri]

Any thoughts on Wayfarers vs Biblioplan?

 

I like that they both use SOTW but I'm not as familiar with their mid-level spines. Guerber vs ?? in BP.

 

 

 

MOH gets more and more expensive every year. If you want to use it all the way through, check the price of year 4. The TOG software version is a nightmare to use.

 

Wayfarers is an easy download that can be viewed on any device. The price is affordable all the way through. The author is an amazing person and in the trenches still homeschooling real kids both gifted and "behind". And she somehow still has time to write. And write good stuff. She is a truly rare woman who impresses me greatly.

 

Another new curriculum on the market that I am impressed with is Layers of Learning. Years 1-3 are done and I am fully expecting year 4 to get completed. I use the downloads as a digital reference set and am really looking forward to owning year 4, too.

 

I'm not easily impressed by new anymore, but these ladies get my 100% recommendation over MOH and TOG. LoL isn't classical, so if you are looking at classical I'd go with Wayfarers over LoL. LoL is more hands on and less reading, and has it's place in the homeschool market. And as a backup resource for mostly eBook families that cannot own a large home library it has zero competition.

 

[Heather in VA]

Biblioplan has a spine called the Companion. It can be used for all ages (either in part or full) but in full it's best for middle school and up. For Year 2 they have a book called Remember the Days which is for elementary school. They are putting out one each year but Year 1 will be last for several reasons but partly because Ancients is the easiest to use with all ages. It has mapping, crafts, timeline, questions, essays, and tests (for the older kids). I've been using Biblioplan for 4 years now. It's excellent and easy to use.

[Hunter]

I have never seen biblioplan. I'm sorry.

[coastalfam]

Man, I have spent so many months on working through these questions for my group of kiddos. We used to use Sonlight happily last year when we had just one kiddo homeschooling. When we decided to add both our other children, I knew we would need something that would not have me doing several Sonlight cores at once. In the spring we set aside Sonlight and tried TOG for our unit on Rome. That did not work for us at all, and now we are enthusiastically using Wayfarers for a month now. I have not used Biblioplan, but it was a strong contender for a while! :) Anyway, here is my rundown of the two programs I have used:

 

TOG is way expensive, and for what it was for us, way, way, way too complicated and involved for me to feel like I was getting a break from simply doing three completely different sets of history. We only used one unit, and I only hung with it for a few weeks. I know so many families love it, and we did enjoy the literature selections very much, but as far as curriculum, it didn't work us. I need simple, and TOG was overwhelming.

 

Wayfarers is what we are using this year, and I am so thrilled with it. So thrilled. It fits my needs for something well laid out, comprehensive yet simply presented, affordable, easy to accommodate my levels of kids, easy to switch-up and customize, yet the backbone of the program keeps me organized and moving in a general direction. As a bonus, it also keeps the kids together in studies of science, music, and art. The author seems to have budget in mind, and a lot of the books are easily found at the library, or public domain. If you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free e-book she wrote called "A Walk in the Park", which was helpful for me to understand where she is coming from, and how she intended a homeschool day to look with the Wayfarers guide. I just found myself saying "Amen" to her philosophy, experience, and ideas. I think what is important to understand between Wayfarers, and Biblioplan, TOG, and others, is Wayfarers does not do the teaching--it does have some discussion focus, lovely art to study, and plenty of advice or guidance, but it is really intended as a planner that guides your choice of literature (sort of like TOG), and then schedules them for you so the literature reinforce the geography, history, and science spines. It also schedules special activities, experiments, and electives like art and music. You can do all of it, some of it, change it around. It is really adaptable, and the outline, as I'm sure you have seen, is delightfully simple. Very easy for this mom to use. It is Classical and Charlotte Mason all at once (win, win in my book). Every family is different, but this is what works for us to combine our kids for our content subjects. The other curriculum offered by Barefoot Curriculum is also excellent and affordable. :) We use ELTL and the Handwriting curriculum.

[Hunter]

Wayfarers author absolutely prioritizes scheduling cheaper books and books that also come in downloadable ebook. She doesn't just schedule what she likes best or has on hand herself. 

 

No curriculum is right for all families. But Wayfarers has a chance of being successful for more families than many other similar curricula. The lady knows what she is doing and worries about the little details that trip up busy and lower-income moms. She has the user's back.

[RebeccaMary]

For a spine for the older kids, you might check out the World in Ancient Times books from Oxford University Press. There are individual books on each major ancient civilization (Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Americas, and South Asia) and a Primary Source guide that goes with all of the books.

 

They're good but expensive, so it might be worth checking your library...

[UCF612]

We are doing Wayfarers this year. So far we are enjoying it! I find it easy to adapt to the needs of our family.

[MotherGoose]

In my opinion, having had to use MOH in multiple years for a coop, the Ancients is the worst year.  I'm Christian, and we read the Bible.  I don't mind some Bible integration.  But MOH Ancients has TOO MUCH Bible in my opinion.  And it presents all Bible stories as historical fact.  That's not okay with me.  Again, we are Christian.  We love Jesus.  We read the Bible daily.  But I much prefer the approach of SOTW or Biblioplan for history.  There's so much fun ancient history but MOH glosses over that in favor of another Bible study.