shanvan Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I really like what I see, but I'm not getting a good sense of what is included. It looks a little light on Bible study to me, compared to TOG. If specifically looking at Quest for the Ancient World. About Teacher's Guides: Are there discussion questions listed, or is it just a list of assignments? About the history flashcards:What do these look like? Can anyone compare these with cards offered by Veritas Press? Mapwork: Are there answer keys? Has anyone just purchased the guide w/o the package? If so, do you get the history flashcards with the guide? Any comments or opinions about Winter Promise or comparisions to other curricula that might help me make a decision about what to buy? Hope to hear from some of you. Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowWhite Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I really like what I see, but I'm not getting a good sense of what is included. It looks a little light on Bible study to me, compared to TOG. If specifically looking at Quest for the Ancient World. I'd imagine you are right, not having used TOG myself. But Mystery of History, which is the spine of QAW, does include some Bible study within the text. Depending on the age you are looking for it also includes either the Illustrated Family Bible or Case for a Creator and Holman's Bible Atlas. About Teacher's Guides: Are there discussion questions listed, or is it just a list of assignments? There is a list of "narration questions" which are nonspecific (work with any story/passage). There are also 100 "Timeline Cards", which would be the answers to questions from the time period. There are suggestions for Jeopardy style games and such to use with the cards. About the history flashcards:What do these look like? Can anyone compare these with cards offered by Veritas Press? They do not have illustrations. The front has a simple statement. The back has the date and details about the item listed on the front. If you go to the "Experience Quest for the Middle Ages" pdf file at WP, it will show you a two page sample of this type of card. Matter of fact, this will probably answer a lot of your questions, as QMA is just the second year continuance of QAW. http://www.winterpromise.com/pdfs/QuestfortheMiddleAges-Experience2009.pdf Mapwork: Are there answer keys? Mystery of History provides Mapwork Answer Keys free on their website: http://www.themysteryofhistory.com/volumeI_mapkey.shtml Has anyone just purchased the guide w/o the package? If so, do you get the history flashcards with the guide? Yes and yes. I bought both Animals and Their Worlds and Amer Story 1 this way. It enabled me to spread my curric purchase out over the year and use second-hand books from prior WP users, half.com and betterworldbooks.com (that last one has free shipping). Any comments or opinions about Winter Promise or comparisions to other curricula that might help me make a decision about what to buy? Sorry, I can't compare to other curric because I have been so satisfied with WP I have never tried another company. The most common complaint about WP is communication difficulties that affect customer service. My advice to avoid that is to call, call, call until you talk to a human being. WP's strength is in person-to-person communication. I think their technological infrastructure is still in the "working out the bugs" developmental stages. I will tell you that the Brooks family will bend over backwards to make you happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 Do you find that you truly have free time using this curriculum? One of the things that attracts me is that it claims to lay everything out so you don't have to invest time planning, and seems to leave you lots of time for "masterly inactivity" and adding in your own book selections. Thanks again, SnowWhite! Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowWhite Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 We did add in a few extra books this year, and I am certain compared to TOG there is less time spent on lessons. I do NOT have a lot of prep time, matter of fact I fly by the seat of my pants most days, sometimes running to the copier for a paper craft (but I don't think QAW has paper crafts... that's a part of the young elem programs). If you keep track of the craft supplies list and add them to your grocery list at the beginning of the week, or the week before, you should be fine. My ds is only second grade, so the load is lighter I am sure, but between WP LA2, WP AS1, WP World Around Me science, and our Math program, we are spending 3.5 hours on lessons per day. (Not including a 20-30 min. read-aloud, which I do as a bedtime story) This is 4 days per week, freeing up our Friday for just Math, Art and Music- which is a BIG draw to this liberal arts loving mama. Now I spread it out over the day with lots of breaks (we take a 90 min lunch to enable me to get a handle on housework), so it seems like we're "at school" all day, but the pace is very relaxed. I prefer for ds to feel we're at school all day so he doesn't get bored and sassy, LOL. The 3.5 hours also includes some supplementary reading and science I have invented to appeal to ds (maybe 30 min of it, which balances out the read-aloud at night). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandra in va Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I really like what I see, but I'm not getting a good sense of what is included. It looks a little light on Bible study to me, compared to TOG. If specifically looking at Quest for the Ancient World. We started the year with TOG year 1, then after unit 2 switched back to WP. We had used WP for AS1 and AS2 and now we are using QAW. We've gone from week 11-19 (at a faster pace). Now we are adding in some TOG to our trimmed down QAW to finish up the year. They are both great programs for different reasons. To answer your question, the Bible sections that they cover are different. For example - TOG really focuses on the first four books of the Bible in units 1 and 2. QAW doesnt, so after 16 weeks in TOG, I was only on week 11 in QAW. However, QAW does spend more time on the prophets and kings. There is a chart in the back of MOH that links Scripture references to each MOH section. I assign those as extra reading they do before they write up their MYO history page. TOG definitely has more Bible reading, though. For, ex. reading through whole books as opposed to relevant chapters. About Teacher's Guides: Are there discussion questions listed, or is it just a list of assignments? No discussion questions. About the history flashcards: What do these look like? Can anyone compare these with cards offered by Veritas Press? History flashcards cannot compare with VP. The WP ones have topics on one side and a short description on the back. Whereas VP has 32 beautiful cards with dates, info, and pictures. What the WP cards lack in beauty or info, they make up for it in sheer quantity. There are many more cards with lots of topics. It would be easy to add in the VP cards for memory work. Only thing is that you would need to use their first two sets OT/AE and NT/GR. We use the VP Bible cards and love them. We have tried in the past with the history cards but have not been able to make them work as well. I'm still trying to fit them in! Mapwork: Are there answer keys? I recommend the Knowledge quest book of maps - it has better (imo) map directions and answer keys built in. I think it is more detailed and easier to implement. I would also recommend the Holman Bible atlas which is a powerful resource for many of the maps required. Has anyone just purchased the guide w/o the package? If so, do you get the history flashcards with the guide? I have done it both ways. (Buying the guide alone and the whole package.) I like to buy the guide and the books I want, b/c we don't use them all. I do like the WP schedule, it helps keep me on track! And as you mentioned - requires less planning so it is easier for me. Any comments or opinions about Winter Promise or comparisions to other curricula that might help me make a decision about what to buy? WP is heavy on crafts, but that does not mean it is light on learning from books. They pack the program with so many options for how to learn that no one could do it all. We don't do many of the crafts, but still really like the program. I've used SL in the past and loved it, but really wanted a mix of books to reach a wider age range and the option of activities. I also appreciate the corresponding activity (MYO) pages. The independent work pages are nice, as well, b/c the kids can see at a glance what they have to work on each day - directions for the MYO pages, which timeline figures to place, etc. Obviously no program is perfect. WP doesn't always correlate its books well. I use TOG and the SL catalog to supplement with more books b/c we love to read. I use the TOG charts for the kids to fill in and some of the discussion questions. Sorry for all this rambling. It really depends on what you want from the program, anything can be tweaked to make it more suitable for your needs, however, it helps to pick a main one that fits your most pressing needs. Best to you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted March 15, 2009 Author Share Posted March 15, 2009 These posts were all very helpful to me. I truly appreciate the time it took to write these explanations! I do have one question for Sandra. I am a little confused about the Veritas Cards. Are they only Bible, or history too? When you said you are trying with history cards you are referring to WP history cards, right? I am looking for some memory work, but nothing too overwhleming. I want it to cover both Bible events and historical. Seems like WP cards might be a bit much, although I could just pick the ones I wanted memorized. Even if I don't use their cards I still lvoe what WP has to offer! Thanks again, ladies. Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandra in va Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 Shannon - VP has 160 Bible cards (5 sets of 32) as well as 160 history cards. Some of the Bible cards are in the OT/AE and NT/GR sets, but obviously just a fraction of them. Those two sets do cover history and Bible simultaneously. I think you are right - you could use just the WP ones you'd like. Just a note - they are printed 8 to a page with the date and importance facts on one page and the topic on the other, so you do have to get them printed out on cardstock back to back so they will be real flashcards. Hope this makes sense! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted March 15, 2009 Author Share Posted March 15, 2009 Now I just have to make a decision. As long as I don't look at any other curriculum,, I think I'll be okay! Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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