Any Wayfarers reviews??

[homeschoolwarrior]

We have the first term of ancients, so I kind of know what it is like. But I am looking for some experienced users to give an opinion. Bonus points if you have a big family :). Thank you!!

[coastalfam]

No big family here. Sorry. We have 3 kids and all are in the grammar stage. We used Wayfarers Medieval this year, and we all enjoyed it a lot! I had it in print, and decided it is really best as a pdf on a tablet so you can enjoy the beautiful painting and photographs included in the weekly discussions, as well as the lively daily schedule. I am not going to use it next year for the very simple reason that we only have grammar stage kids (one is advancing into Logic, but it makes sense to keep him on the same level for our History and Science spines, and advance him for his literature and language arts assignments as appropriate). I felt like the rhythm and flow of Wayfarers helped me immensely to see how to undertake planning my own program for next year, so I am going to give it a go and plan SOTW and Quark Chronicles as our spines. I will pick Wayfarers up again when our age span makes it too tricky to coordinate myself. Currently we have a funny schedule with a charter we go to two afternoons a week, so I ended up using Wayfarers like a weekly menu, instead of a daily checklist, and I added all that I wanted to do and used my own daily teachers schedule to plan. I have an art program we like better than what is recommended in Wayfarers, so I do make substitutions as well. I think the most value is to be found in the coordination os history, science, and geography. I am a very big fan of Barefoot Meandering Curricula as a whole. We use ELTL, RLTL, HLTL, Wayfarers, Quark Chronicles, and I love the little science unit studies available on Lulu.com as well. We are also going to do "50 States and Where to Find Them" next year, and I am using one of the free downloads from the BRC's site to do my lesson planning for SOTW. I feel like the program is more than fairly priced for all you get, even if one were only to use it as a menu and guide for developing a unique family program for the year. 

[sjrbmom]

We have also used Ancients with my son this year (only one school age kid). We have loved it, but like coastalfam, used it more as a spine than following the schedule to the letter. We will continue using ELTL, MUS, SOTW, and Quark next year. Not sure about RLTL - I like phonograms but have used a variety of resources to teach reading. The one things we haven't done is the additional read alouds - the curricula were already read-aloud heavy and it would have been too much for us.

 

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[Davina]

Wayfarer's was a great fit for us during a season when I just needed a break from planning.  We have used all three terms of both the Ancients and Medieval years.  Be aware that it can be a very heavy load as far as reading goes and very light as in required output and hands on activities.  If you are a box checker beware!  The author cautions you not to try to read everything she has listed and to use your own judgement.  Please take that to heart.  If you can use it as a smorgasbord of options and not get bogged down in the schedule it is fine.

 

ELTL is amazing for grammar.  We have used levels 3-5 and both of my girls have an awesome foundation. Plus they have enjoyed the literature selections.  That being said, I needed a bit more hand holding with the writing assignments.  So we didn't do many of them.

 

If I had a larger family (I am only teaching 2), I would consider staying with it for Revolutions and Modern.  Since I only have two doing school right now and I once again feel like tackling planning, we are going with more interest led studies for our upcoming year.

 

I hope this helps even though I don't qualify for the bonus points!

 

 

[rjand6more]

We used it this year with 2 kids. (Revolution) My K'er used Sonlight and RLTL, HLTL.  It was nicely done.  It is how I would schedule if I had the time.  I loved the pace of SOTW leaving days to do the workbook.  The geography(fiction selections) was scheduled heavily.  So, we backed off of those.  I like the choices for readers.  I really wish there was a map and timeline portion.  And I REALLY want some discussion questions.  There is a very well done history through art section and a few paragraphs to dig deeper into the geography fiction book for that week.  We often had to sub books because we had already read that book at another time.

 

ELTL was good.  I like the grammar lessons.  The stories were just ok.  RLTL brought tears every day. :(  I bet I was not doing it right.  The quizzes and cards every other day were rough.  I do think it was solid though.  He codes all words now.  So, very effective. HLTL was awesome.

 

That said, I am making a switch to Biblioplan next year.  We may be back to Wayfarers if I need less structure. lol

[sarahrb]

We used it this year with 2 kids. (Revolution) My K'er used Sonlight and RLTL, HLTL.  It was nicely done.  It is how I would schedule if I had the time.  I loved the pace of SOTW leaving days to do the workbook.  The geography(fiction selections) was scheduled heavily.  So, we backed off of those.  I like the choices for readers.  I really wish there was a map and timeline portion.  And I REALLY want some discussion questions.  There is a very well done history through art section and a few paragraphs to dig deeper into the geography fiction book for that week.  We often had to sub books because we had already read that book at another time.

 

ELTL was good.  I like the grammar lessons.  The stories were just ok.  RLTL brought tears every day. :(  I bet I was not doing it right.  The quizzes and cards every other day were rough.  I do think it was solid though.  He codes all words now.  So, very effective. HLTL was awesome.

 

That said, I am making a switch to Biblioplan next year.  We may be back to Wayfarers if I need less structure. lol

 

rjand4more reminded me of other ways we modified Wayfarers:

 

1) We ended up ditching Geography for two reasons - one, it was our first year homeschooling and I really wanted to make sure I hit the basics.  Two, I didn't understand the structure of the Geography program at first and thought it was disorganized.  Later I re-examined it and saw how it fit together and it wasn't disorganized at all, but it was still too much for me to do this year.  I'd like to do Geography next year, although I'm not sure if I'll use Wayfarers' schedule or a different program.

 

2) Ditto on RLTL.  We love to use phonograms but weren't getting a lot out of the spelling lists and flashcards.  We tried moving to the stories in the back of the book (which I liked) but they were too much at once for my kiddo.  Mid year we scaled back to easier readers and kept applying phonograms to them and that has been better.  I even did a spelling list the other week to review different uses of silent E and he did it without a fight :) probably due to progress in copywork/handwriting.

 

Still, overall we really like the programs and plan to continue with most of them as I mentioned in my previous post.

[UCF612]

We love ELTL and plan to cotinue it. I liked Wayfarers and when we stayed on top of it we loved it. But we got overwhelmed and dropped it after 1 semester. I look back and we really did have a good time with the reading selections and geography but I quickly discovered that we just can't do a combined program like that. Our days are too....asynchronous.