Biblioplan workaround

[BoyMom2]

Has anyone used Biblioplan recently? I have been intrigued by it for years and almost purchased it a few times along the way. I'm now considering it once again, and see that they are in the process of updating the Companions into new texts called Consider the Years.

My youngest is finishing 7th now. I would like to cover American history with him next year, then have him do world history as a Freshman. My brain is wondering about the possibility of using both the Early Modern Companion and Modern Consider the Years for both of these years. For 8th, we could go through all the American history topics with the accompanying questions, maps, and some extra literature. For his 9th grade year, he could go back through both texts reading the world history portions, and do the accompanying work and literature that focuses on world history topics. So essentially, instead of completing one single core each year he would complete half of both of them each year. From the samples it appears that the texts are broken up into American and world sections by heading.

Is this absolutely nuts? Has anyone used them recently that can tell me if this would be a workable plan?

Thanks!

[JessinTX]

I did this kind of. The texts are pretty clearly labeled which are World History vs. US History and for Geography. They often go from one to the other in the same chapter so sometimes it's kind of an awkward transition if you didn't read the beginning of the chapter or whatever, but not so bad. 

It's hard for me to say whether you could complete two levels in one year... I still just did one level but focused only on US History. Toward the later end of Modern History there is a lot less US History and it's all just labeled World History (but still a definite part of the American Story.) I think it just gets harder and harder to separate the two after say WWII. 

The supplemental reading and book recommendations seemed to lean more heavily toward World History.

 

[BoyMom2]

On 4/23/2024 at 12:45 PM, JessinTX said:

I did this kind of. The texts are pretty clearly labeled which are World History vs. US History and for Geography. They often go from one to the other in the same chapter so sometimes it's kind of an awkward transition if you didn't read the beginning of the chapter or whatever, but not so bad. 

It's hard for me to say whether you could complete two levels in one year... I still just did one level but focused only on US History. Toward the later end of Modern History there is a lot less US History and it's all just labeled World History (but still a definite part of the American Story.) I think it just gets harder and harder to separate the two after say WWII. 

The supplemental reading and book recommendations seemed to lean more heavily toward World History.

 

Thank you so much for your insight! I'm glad to hear that it's divided between American/world even if there are some mid-chapter transitions. Without reading the world history portions this next year, a quick glance as we're reading through the American portions could be nice to give a general context to what was happening concurrently in the world.

He enjoys history and likes the look of the books from the samples, so I think we'll give it a try! It sounds like it might work out well that there is more of a big picture world focus in the latter part of the modern text, and that the supplements lean more heavily in that direction as well. Since he will be covering world history as a Freshman, I would like that course to be more substantial than an 8th grade course.

Thank you!