calihil Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 Anyone here have experience with both of these curricula? I am considering just going in full Classical next year with my will be 3rd and 1st graders. My oldest has been using the VP Self Paced Bible class and has really enjoyed it this year. I like the idea of VP "taking over" much of those areas, so to speak. I feel like I have so much on my plate. But I do like how MP has lesson plans all nicely laid out. I see that you can purchase lesson plans from VP but I don't know how they look, the samples aren't very good. My oldest isn't reading very well yet, either, and still needs a lot of hand holding, but so does my younger one. So any advice or experience to share? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creekside5 Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 I strongly dislike Veritas Press History curriculum. Lots of skill and drill, worksheets, and the kids quickly forget the information. I prefer a story based History. How about Susan Wise Bauer's books? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calihil Posted February 8, 2017 Author Share Posted February 8, 2017 I strongly dislike Veritas Press History curriculum. Lots of skill and drill, worksheets, and the kids quickly forget the information. I prefer a story based History. How about Susan Wise Bauer's books?You mean the self paced online ones? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamamoose Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 We use a lot of MPncurriculum and I am really liking all of it. There is a lot of workbook stuff but we do some of it orally and the rest verbally. I love the recitation in the back of the curriculum manual for the grades...I feel like the kids are really retaining it well. And they like the memorization and how smart it makes them feel. Maybe that's not actually good teaching but for now it's feeling successful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CherryBlossomMJ Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 We started all MP. Spent 2nd grade and a partial third grade with VP and have returned to almost full MP after lots of stress. If you are just talking curriculum and not enrollment in Diploma, then VP has a lot of wonderful things. We love the self-paved courses so far, we are really enjoying a live Memory Period. At History is awesome and the Pages of History books are fabulous. VP has good reading/literature lists. Memoria Press has it all together in an easy to follow lesson plan with no busy work. (VP LP are laden with "school at home busy work") MP is gentler eet I feel like ey cover more and grasp the concept of Classical better. With that said Classical Academic Press has some greats too. Especially in Song School Latin and some others. I have years of experience with all three and would love to answer any specific questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creekside5 Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 You mean the self paced online ones? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk Sorry- maybe we are talking about different things. I mean the Veritas History cards. For example: "Old Testament & Ancient Egypt Flashcards cover 32 events during the Old Testament and in Ancient Egypt. Students will learn through informative and engaging flashcards, starting with Creation and ultimately concluding with the fall of Egypt to Rome. Our history series applies the time-proven classical method of memorizing a timeline with supporting facts." It comes with worksheets that the kids fill out after reading the cards. Lots of tests and quizzes- pure regurgitation. Maybe there is more to it than just that, but my current school uses it as a supplement. I prefer my History more story oriented. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8Arrows4theLord Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 We enjoyed Memoria Press' lit. guides. If your child is not reading well above grade level, any classical curriculum will be very challenging. You may need to go back a grade level or two. I used The MP 2nd gr. lit. books with my then 5th gr. son who is dyslexic. He enjoyed them. One nice thing about the lit. guides is they aren't labeled with a grade level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndOfOrdinary Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 We use the VP History and Bible cards and love them. No worksheets or quizzes here. There are resources listed on each card so you do a whole week per card with readings and stories. The card provides a condensed blurb for the student to memorize along with the date. You do one card a week. The beginning of each day you recite the previous weeks cards and discuss how they lnk to this weeks card. It was great. By having physical cards, I could pull out say ten randomly and have Ds put them in order. Ds has a really great timeline of history to now base larger studies off of. Ds liked the self paced history. It has games, video, and exercises. However, I wanted more writing and lecture in our history. We switched to The Great Courses around late 4th grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndOfOrdinary Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 Sorry- maybe we are talking about different things. I mean the Veritas History cards. For example: "Old Testament & Ancient Egypt Flashcards cover 32 events during the Old Testament and in Ancient Egypt. Students will learn through informative and engaging flashcards, starting with Creation and ultimately concluding with the fall of Egypt to Rome. Our history series applies the time-proven classical method of memorizing a timeline with supporting facts." It comes with worksheets that the kids fill out after reading the cards. Lots of tests and quizzes- pure regurgitation. Maybe there is more to it than just that, but my current school uses it as a supplement. I prefer my History more story oriented. There is A LOT more to them. It is too bad they do not use them with the resource selections. It allows students to begin learning research skills, narration, summarizing, and provides a large woven story to history. The cards are just the spine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 (edited) . Edited September 5, 2023 by SilverMoon 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmseB Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 We're more let's go read a pile of good books and discuss it homeschoolers. VP lets us do that. MP did not. We are the opposite with MP. It has led to some really awesome discussions and side trails. I think you can assign it as "read this and fill in the workbook" but, you're right, that is drudgery. The workbooks were originally developed as classroom guides, where there is a lot of discussion, the kids don't just sit and fill in answers, they take turns reading the selection, they work with the teacher to compose a really well written answer to one or two of the questions. I think MP looks like a "throw workbooks at a kid and fill in the blanks" curriculum. In practice, that's not how it should be used. I'm not sure how MP could communicate that better to hs families, because I do see it as a common complaint. We like VP's self-paced stuff, but use it for fun during the summer. It was really nice that my son did VP's Greek and Roman history last summer. It's really given him an amazing start and context for MP's Famous Men of Rome this school year. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLife Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 (edited) I am a fan of VP's materials. I have never felt like VP's history is drill and kill. We use the Bible and History cards as our spine. We typically complete the worksheets orally. My children have loved learning the history song, reading great books, and completing fun activities. We also enjoy VP's Legends and Leagues geography. Next year, I look forward to using VP's First Favorites and More Favorites. Edited February 14, 2017 by MyLife Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellifera33 Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 We are the opposite with MP. It has led to some really awesome discussions and side trails. I think you can assign it as "read this and fill in the workbook" but, you're right, that is drudgery. The workbooks were originally developed as classroom guides, where there is a lot of discussion, the kids don't just sit and fill in answers, they take turns reading the selection, they work with the teacher to compose a really well written answer to one or two of the questions. I think MP looks like a "throw workbooks at a kid and fill in the blanks" curriculum. In practice, that's not how it should be used. I'm not sure how MP could communicate that better to hs families, because I do see it as a common complaint. Yes, I think that MP materials would be pretty boring if used as independent workbooks, but I find the teachers' guides useful for providing structure for discussion. We are currently using the guide to D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and my 9 y/o loves it. I was hesitant to even order the guide, thinking it would be blah, but now I'm considering using MP materials for more subjects next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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