Biblioplan/Sonlight questions

[ChildofGrace]

I've searched the forums regarding Biblioplan, but I've not found many posts from those who have used Sonlight and then switched to Biblioplan.

 

Biblioplan actually looks very similar to SL to me, minus the Discussion Questions, Vocabulary and Bible schedule, and I think it could be done less expensively than SL. My major qualm would be regarding whether the book selections are as engaging and thought-provoking as SLs.

 

Has anyone here used both? In your opinion, how do the book suggestions compare? Are there any aspects of Biblioplan that you prefer to SL? Or, conversely, did anyone find that they greatly preferred SL to Biblioplan?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Ali in OR]

I have only used Biblioplan, not Sonlight. But many of the books are in the Sonlight catalog; my impression is that the women who put together Biblioplan were familiar with Sonlight and used many of the books. We're in our third year of Biblioplan and have enjoyed most all of the books.

 

Biblioplan takes more work to put together--you can't just buy a core. I make my own spreadsheet of all of the books, note which are in my library, what they cost from Amazon, RR, Sonlight, and best used price. After deciding which books I want to buy, I place many orders (lots of used from Amazon) to get the best price. There is a schedule for Biblioplan, but no discussion questions, background info, etc.

 

The main reason I use Biblioplan is that I can choose the books that fit us best. I've always been intrigued by Sonlight Core 3--it looks fantastic. But the comments on it always made it seem better for slightly older kids than my 3rd grader and K tag-along. With Biblioplan, there are books in 3 different age categories, plus a family read-aloud going all the time. We use mostly the K-2 and 3+ categories, but I'll occasionally choose a 5+ for a read aloud. I'm not sure Biblioplan ends up being cheaper than Sonlight--but it really depends on how good your library is and how many books you want to buy. I spend about $500 a year on history (Biblioplan, SOTW + AG, and lots of books to read).

 

The other difference is that Biblioplan fits the 4-year WTM schedule. If that's important to you, you have to tweak Sonlight to make it work this way. HTH.

[ChildofGrace]

I have only used Biblioplan, not Sonlight. But many of the books are in the Sonlight catalog; my impression is that the women who put together Biblioplan were familiar with Sonlight and used many of the books. We're in our third year of Biblioplan and have enjoyed most all of the books.

 

Ah. Thank you. This is helpful to know.

 

Biblioplan takes more work to put together--you can't just buy a core. I make my own spreadsheet of all of the books, note which are in my library, what they cost from Amazon, RR, Sonlight, and best used price. After deciding which books I want to buy, I place many orders (lots of used from Amazon) to get the best price. There is a schedule for Biblioplan, but no discussion questions, background info, etc.

 

Even though I generally love to plan and "hunt", I'm not sure that I want to have to do that year after year. Could you tell me, are there many books to choose between?

 

The main reason I use Biblioplan is that I can choose the books that fit us best. I've always been intrigued by Sonlight Core 3--it looks fantastic. But the comments on it always made it seem better for slightly older kids than my 3rd grader and K tag-along. With Biblioplan, there are books in 3 different age categories, plus a family read-aloud going all the time. We use mostly the K-2 and 3+ categories, but I'll occasionally choose a 5+ for a read aloud. I'm not sure Biblioplan ends up being cheaper than Sonlight--but it really depends on how good your library is and how many books you want to buy. I spend about $500 a year on history (Biblioplan, SOTW + AG, and lots of books to read).

 

 

Do you follow the schedule pretty closely? My understanding is that BP schedules about a book a week~~would you say that's true, and if so, do you follow that?

 

The other difference is that Biblioplan fits the 4-year WTM schedule. If that's important to you, you have to tweak Sonlight to make it work this way. HTH.

 

That is another issue I've been pondering. I feel at sort of a crossroads here. I know that if I continue with SL, I'll either have to really tweak to follow the 4-year model, or I'll need to let that go.

 

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with me. You've given me a much clearer picture of BP from which to decide!

[gamommy]

I like the flexibiity of Biblioplan. Theare are lost of scheduled readings in several didrent spines. We use the UILE and SOTW primarily with the AG for my 1st grader. Vitor Journey we used as well. Then our 5th grader uses readings from MOH and the KHE as well. Bioplan gives you time line dates 9 we usually don't use figures and weekly map work that we do together. Their read aloud books have been hits and I'll usually have my girls working on another related title independantly.

 

I purchase some books (ones I can't get easily locally through the library or ones that I think we'll use again and again.

[MIch elle]

SL is WAY too much! My dc aren't big readers and SL schedules WAYYY too many books for us to keep up with readers, read-aloud AND history. I'm not even trying with SL 6; we're doing ONLY history in SL 6 this year.

 

I'm considering BP 3 because I want to use SOTW 3 with the first 5 books of the Hakim series together in one year. SL doesn't do this. They have SOTW 3 & 4 in one year and then SL 100 the next year.

[Penny]

Well, I use both. BiblioPlan has a great book list and it is cheap. However, I pre-read every book and make a list of vocab words and comprehension questions, and it just got to be too much without help. So this year I bought the SL IG and it is helping so much. Now I can pre-read without constantly stopping to jot down page numbers and vocab words, along with comprehesion questions. Of course, if you were willing to skip all that, then just go with BiblioPlan. The books are fantastic, listed for all grade levels, and there are many more of them. One thing I do is get the lower grammar books just for fun for my 11 yr old dc, then assign the 5th-8th grade book.

 

However, even with BiblioPlan I do recommend pre-reading. A few books I found too gory for my kids to read (In Search of Honor comes to mind). They were very good books, but not for a sheltered 5th grader.

 

So, this week I am doing a SL read aloud, and my kids are scheduled for a BP reader! Oh, the other issue is that we do SOTW, and BP has books for world history, whereas SL just American.

 

If I had to choose just one, probably BP due to the grade level lists.

 

Penny

[Ali in OR]

1. Could you tell me, are there many books to choose between?

 

I'm in the planning stage for year 4, which definitely has the most books (the Biblioplan list is 2 pages compared to 1 for the other years). The entire list including classtime resources, all readers for all ages, and family read alouds is about 150 books. You do choose some from the classtime resources and skip others (eg you wouldn't use both Usborne and Kingfisher but pages from each are scheduled). We do most/all of the family read-alouds and I usually buy those (there are 12 for year 4). Typically one family read-aloud might be scheduled over 3-4 weeks (maybe 50 pages/week of reading). I buy the 3+ readers because that's our target age range. And it's usually about 1 book a week. I will also get a few "classic" 5+ books like Carry On, Mr. Bowditch which we're reading aloud now. K-2 I mostly get from the library. These are picture books that really add a lot to our studies I think, but I don't need to own them. There might be 2 or 3 k-2 books per week. I might be buying 40-50 books total this year.

 

2. Do you follow the schedule pretty closely? My understanding is that BP schedules about a book a week~~would you say that's true, and if so, do you follow that?

 

I follow the schedule. Some Biblioplan weeks take us longer than a week to do. Some crazy weeks have 5 or 6 chapters of SOTW scheduled. Others have none. We started early this year and did maybe 4 weeks during the summer and we will finish one week into June. The schedule is great and you can use as much as is comfortable to you. Figure out which spines you love (we prefer History of US to Child's Story of America, so that's what we use for instance). Skip some stuff. Use what is appropriate to your kids' ages (we don't do writing assignments this time through).

 

We do love history here and we love all the reading. We don't do crafts or projects or even much narration or writing, but we do a lot of reading. My kids are getting an awesome history education, and I am too, really. I'm learning so much I never knew before. History is our favorite subject.

[ChildofGrace]

Thank you so very much for this detailed reply! This answers so many questions~~I really appreciate it.

 

 

1. Could you tell me, are there many books to choose between?

 

I'm in the planning stage for year 4, which definitely has the most books (the Biblioplan list is 2 pages compared to 1 for the other years). The entire list including classtime resources, all readers for all ages, and family read alouds is about 150 books. You do choose some from the classtime resources and skip others (eg you wouldn't use both Usborne and Kingfisher but pages from each are scheduled). We do most/all of the family read-alouds and I usually buy those (there are 12 for year 4). Typically one family read-aloud might be scheduled over 3-4 weeks (maybe 50 pages/week of reading). I buy the 3+ readers because that's our target age range. And it's usually about 1 book a week. I will also get a few "classic" 5+ books like Carry On, Mr. Bowditch which we're reading aloud now. K-2 I mostly get from the library. These are picture books that really add a lot to our studies I think, but I don't need to own them. There might be 2 or 3 k-2 books per week. I might be buying 40-50 books total this year.

 

 

I'm thinking that it really might be less costly to go this route. Wow. You're getting a bunch of books for $500. That sounds wonderful!

 

2. Do you follow the schedule pretty closely? My understanding is that BP schedules about a book a week~~would you say that's true, and if so, do you follow that?

 

I follow the schedule. Some Biblioplan weeks take us longer than a week to do. Some crazy weeks have 5 or 6 chapters of SOTW scheduled. Others have none. We started early this year and did maybe 4 weeks during the summer and we will finish one week into June. The schedule is great and you can use as much as is comfortable to you. Figure out which spines you love (we prefer History of US to Child's Story of America, so that's what we use for instance). Skip some stuff. Use what is appropriate to your kids' ages (we don't do writing assignments this time through).

 

We do love history here and we love all the reading. We don't do crafts or projects or even much narration or writing, but we do a lot of reading. My kids are getting an awesome history education, and I am too, really. I'm learning so much I never knew before. History is our favorite subject.

 

Yes. History is definitely our favorite subject around here, so I can relate. I am trying mightily this year to avoid going overboard out of my sheer love of the subject:D.

[ChildofGrace]

I like the flexibiity of Biblioplan. Theare are lost of scheduled readings in several didrent spines. We use the UILE and SOTW primarily with the AG for my 1st grader. Vitor Journey we used as well. Then our 5th grader uses readings from MOH and the KHE as well. Bioplan gives you time line dates 9 we usually don't use figures and weekly map work that we do together. Their read aloud books have been hits and I'll usually have my girls working on another related title independantly.

 

I purchase some books (ones I can't get easily locally through the library or ones that I think we'll use again and again.

 

Ah. I have been wondering about that "flexibility" issue, so thanks for sharing this.

 

As far as the time line and mapping, do you use the BP products?

 

Thanks for your help!

[ChildofGrace]

SL is WAY too much! My dc aren't big readers and SL schedules WAYYY too many books for us to keep up with readers, read-aloud AND history. I'm not even trying with SL 6; we're doing ONLY history in SL 6 this year.

 

I'm considering BP 3 because I want to use SOTW 3 with the first 5 books of the Hakim series together in one year. SL doesn't do this. They have SOTW 3 & 4 in one year and then SL 100 the next year.

 

Well, we've used SL, and the amount of reading hasn't really been a problem. I have occassionally gotten behind in our Read-Alouds, but my voracious readers are more than happy to read those on their own.

 

I do agree that it would be interesting to use SOTW alongside Hakim, though. That really sounds like a wonderful combination.

[ChildofGrace]

Thank you very much for your reply. You've spoken to a number of my concerns, and that is a great help.

 

Well, I use both. BiblioPlan has a great book list and it is cheap. However, I pre-read every book and make a list of vocab words and comprehension questions, and it just got to be too much without help. So this year I bought the SL IG and it is helping so much. Now I can pre-read without constantly stopping to jot down page numbers and vocab words, along with comprehesion questions. Of course, if you were willing to skip all that, then just go with BiblioPlan. The books are fantastic, listed for all grade levels, and there are many more of them. One thing I do is get the lower grammar books just for fun for my 11 yr old dc, then assign the 5th-8th grade book.

 

However, even with BiblioPlan I do recommend pre-reading. A few books I found too gory for my kids to read (In Search of Honor comes to mind). They were very good books, but not for a sheltered 5th grader.

 

So, this week I am doing a SL read aloud, and my kids are scheduled for a BP reader! Oh, the other issue is that we do SOTW, and BP has books for world history, whereas SL just American.

 

If I had to choose just one, probably BP due to the grade level lists.

 

Penny

 

LOL. This is very like me. I seem to be constantly combining curriculum~and we've soooo enjoyed the results. For various reasons, however, I'm really feeling the need to eliminate the combining and just go with one.

 

But I like aspects of both.

 

Sigh. I guess I really need to spend more time in prayer.:)

 

Thanks again, for your thoughts.