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Maryan
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| Posted: March 15 2010 at 8:22am | IP Logged
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This past year we did our own themed unit curriculum based on the pasttimes of my late fil. You ladies helped a lot and it's been VERY fruitful. However, it's been a lot of work because I like things very visually appealing (thus one of the reasons I've been missing here!) and I don't think I'd do it again without another very special reason.
I like MODG, but it's three different curriculums. I like Mater Amabilis, but I would have to write out three different lesson plans. So I've been looking at Winterpromise since they have several programs aimed at teaching several age groups. I'll have a 4th, 2nd, K, 4yo and 2yo.
I've actually been thinking about using two of their little kids program and beefing it up with other stuff for my 4th grader. Their costs are steep, but I'm just purchasing the Curriculum books and hunting for the books at the library etc.
1) WP says that Hideaways in History is a quick and fun History of the World in a year program. The "Hideaway" part comes from encouraging making tents, castles, etc. as you study the particular civilizations. I have a bunch of books from RC History that I've been collecting for the beefing -- however RC's guide book isn't very visual... and I am. Thus why I'm persuing WP for some structure. They use SOTW... and I've been told that Vol. II contains Anti-Catholic material, so I'm still unsure what to do there.
I'll do our own religion, math, and... undecided about their language arts program. I think I'd other stuff.
But I also like their little science program:
2) The World around Me is a little science program. We've just done nature study so far...with inquisitive boys that's been pretty fun, but I'd like to hit several topics which might not cross our radar that WAM seems to hit. Again, I'd get some other books for my avid reading 4th grader.
So my questions:
1. How do you like the guidebook set-up. It looks very visual on-line.
2. Is it three-hole punched? Would it be easy for me to add an extra page with my 4th grader's extra assignments? So one side I'd have the littles and on the other side I could have JP's? Only having to do a year for one child wouldn't be so bad!
3. Has anyone run across anti-Catholic sentiment in WP (besides the SOTW)?
4. Are their exclusive resources worth it? Like their notebooking pages, etc.
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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Mackfam
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| Posted: March 16 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged
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Oh, blast, Maryan!!! I wish I could give you some details about Winterpromise's guides, but I've never used them. I LOVE their catalog though for book ideas. I've found some treasures in them. I did choose some books for my older dd from one of their recommendations and it wasn't all appropriate. It's possible that their guide had already considered that and had the child skip certain sections in reading, but I thought I'd throw that in just for context. It wouldn't/shouldn't affect you with the programs you're talking about.
I took a look at your *very visually appealing* checklist!! That is AMAZING!!!!!! said one ridiculously visual person to another!!! You're awesome at this! Any chance that now that you have a sort of template and idea of what you're doing that you might consider doing it again? OR...she says sheepishly...you could lower a few of your visual standards. But really, I'd run with the "I have a template that I love now!!" mantra! I have a feeling you'll end up re-writing some of the guide anyway - you're going to be adding in some great resources you have, and I wonder if once you get into it you'll think of adding a bit here or there...letting go of something else...lots of tweaking and custom fitting for your boys. I know you said it was exhausting to build your plans this past year, but...I had to ask. Your plans look AMAZING, girl!!!! 
I SO wish I could give you something helpful about the guides, but hopefully someone else here can. I think? that Laura (cactusmouse) has used the guides before. I have this vague memory of a review she offered which was helpful to me.
In terms of both of the programs you've selected, I think they sound exciting and great. In general, history and science make up the bulk of our lessons and reading comp, narrations, copywork, writing opportunities, creative opportunities like art and building all spring from either history or science reading from living books.
Good luck deciding...and it's SO GREAT TO SEE YOU AROUND AGAIN!!!!  Now I know what you've been up to!  That checklist is making me drool!!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Angel
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| Posted: March 17 2010 at 7:34am | IP Logged
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I like their catalog, too, but I think you're right -- a lot of their programs do seem to need beefing up. And your template is so *professional*  .
I'm not going to be very much help, though, because I also agree that the RC history guides are incredibly difficult to use. I really wish they at least had page numbers or a table of contents.  Are you using vol 2?
SOTW II *does* have some anti-Catholic material in it. Predictably, it's in the Martin Luther section. Martin Luther is made out to be a hero, and the Catholic Church is made out to be "your grumpy old aunt who's always telling you you're doing something wrong." (Sigh.) If you're reading it aloud, I would just skip that part. If you're listening to it on audio, you can skip it, too, but if your kids listen to the CD without you, then you'll have a bit of discussing to do. 
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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Maryan
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| Posted: March 17 2010 at 8:57am | IP Logged
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Oh Jennifer! First of all, thank you! You're too kind. The pretty plans were totally based on a post from your blog.
And second, you must really understand me!  As soon as I posted this, I spent the day thinking... well,... maybe since the template is already made... and if I start typing plans in the *beginning* of the summer instead of the end... it wouldn't be too stressful to make pretty RC plans... and I'd already have to do plans to beef up for JP. 
Angela, I'm using volume I (haven't purchsed 2 yet), but I have most of the books for Vol. I... but when push came to shove, I couldn't do the plans because of the set-up of the guide!! Ugh. Sometimes I can be so visually handicapped! I think they set it up to span all ages and wanted to be as concise as possible for cost purposes.
As you pointed out, I'd prefer to use CD's just to reduce the number of Mom read-a-louds... and what if I miss the part that I should skip?? Gombrich's LHOTW comes with a CD... so I was thinking even though it wasn't as extensive, it would be a good spine? But then I've totally veered off WP's guide, so what would be the $60 point?!?! I also have quite a few of the "History Links for Catholic Families" which I've never used... oh dear, I think I'm getting over my head.
Sigh. WP's catalog is sooo pretty. I love the idea of teaching multiple ages. And their plans look sooo visual. I like the idea of using someone else's already-made-plans. But it's never that simple. I guess I'd really, really like for one of their plans to fit us one of these years. It sounds so easy. I guess I need to shut the pretty catalog and hope that maybe we can do Sea and Sky when the boys are a little older??
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 17 2010 at 10:32am | IP Logged
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Maryan wrote:
| I guess I need to shut the pretty catalog and hope that maybe we can do Sea and Sky when the boys are a little older?? |
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HOW FUN!!!!!!!!! PLEASE remind me about this program in 6-8 years!!!!
If you like Mater Amabilis or MODG for history, couldn't you just pick a grade and follow it for all the boys, modifying a bit for the different ages (like you would have to for Winter Promise anyway). Then, you could get by with just doing the one lesson plan. Voice of inexperience talking, here, so ignore me if not understanding what you meant! I'm just confused about how doing that would be any different from using something like Winter Promise (having never used either).
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Erin
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| Posted: March 17 2010 at 3:00pm | IP Logged
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Maryan wrote:
I like Mater Amabilis, but I would have to write out three different lesson plans. |
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I also like MA but my middle children, 10 and 8, still need alot of hand holding, not to mention the 5yr old.
Therefore I combined a couple of years so that my 10 and 8 yr old are doing pretty much the same work. For example at present we are reading "The Life of Our Lord for Children' which is recommended for Grade 3, but it is still meaty enough for my ds10.
It's very easy to combine lots of MA grades, when I sat down and was trying to decide for each subject whether to select the grade 5 or 3 choice, I decided based on what books I already owned. This made it very cost effective, which I note is one of your considerations.
If it is of any help you are welcome to look at my plans, but I've already made alterations from what I originally wrote, such as Religion.
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Erin
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Maryan
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| Posted: March 18 2010 at 12:39am | IP Logged
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Erin - what great plans!!! And Lindsey and Erin, combining is a good idea. :) It still would require me to write daily plans... but at least not three entirely different ones!!
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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Karen T
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| Posted: April 12 2010 at 10:25pm | IP Logged
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Sorry to be so late in replying but I don't get over here very often anymore.
I am using Winterpromise this year with a 2nd and 4th grader. We are using the American Story I, which is US history up to the Civil War, then it continues next year in Am Story II. I had used Sonlight the previous year, the Ancient History Core, to give you an idea of what kinds of curricula we'd used.
WP is very similar to SL in many ways. The instructor's guide (yes, it's 3 hole punched) is very thorough as far as scheduling books page by page, etc. It covers history, mapwork, Bible and includes both Readers and Read-alouds ; math, science and LA are separate - I assume you would add in IG pages from them if you get one of their products for those subjects but we had other things we used, so I made a little table using a spreadsheet, for me to schedule in my own things, and I print that out and 3-hole punch it on the righthand side so that it faces the WP page for each week.
Pros - it is much more hands-on than SL. There are lots of suggestions for projects and crafts, although you don't have to do any of them. They include some website links for some activities, and some movies you may want to watch - like the Ken Burns one on Lewis and Clark we are watching this week.
Cons -like SL it includes their Bible study and sometimes some not-so-great Protestant ideas/references. However, there is a WP Catholic yahoo group with good files on red flags and books to substitute. We didn't use their Bible study at all. I'm not crazy about the spine used for ASI but not b/c of anti-Catholic stuff, more b/c it skips a lot of things I consider important and includes less "history-worthy" stories. I think most people have liked the SOTW for the other course, and have just skipped over/ modified the troublesome areas.
I would also say it could use a few more books. Part of that is b/c ASI schedules a study of Native Americans alongside the rest of the history, but after the first week, the timing doesn't match at all with each other, so like many others, we dropped the Indian part and plan to do it as a separate unit study. And so there went quite a few read-alouds. This is easily fixed by adding in some titles from the SL catalog
WP has an awesome Book of Centuries -type book that I love. It has heavy cardstock (like shirt cardboard) pages with the dates and some pictures in sepia tones in old-world type script, like on old maps. The course includes sets of pages that add into this, in addition to timeline figures, which are provided by Homeschool in the woods, in color.
If you have used or looked at SL IG's, a big difference is that WP does not, at least at this level I"m using, include any real notes on the books themselves -study guide type notes. It's not a problem since I'm reading everything anyway, but I know when I used SL for my high schooler last year I could not keep up with all his reading and the notes were very helpful.
I did not use WP's language arts so can't comment on them.
Sorry I don't have direct experience with the exact courses you were looking at, but please join the yahoo group CatholicWP if you need more specifics. I am still undecided about using it next year. Overall I am satisfied with it but I'm coming to the conclusion that at least one of my kids is just not getting much from a primarily auditory curriculum. WP is definitely better than SL in that, with the projects all laid out for you, but I'm just not sure what to do next year for her.
I also used the high school Human Anatomy/Forensics course for my 16 yo ds - he's had biology and will take chemistry next year at the local cc, so I just wanted something on anatomy and health and this sounded interesting. It's OK but the text for anatomy makes Apologia's Creationist literature look like nothing  It got really old.
Karen T in Md
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Maryan
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| Posted: April 13 2010 at 11:27am | IP Logged
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Karen, Awesome! That's great detailed information! Thanks for that feedback. :) I'll have to look into the Catholic WP Yahoo forum. I'm tempted to try to plan my own based on hideaways. Give myself two weeks in June and see how far I get. If I'm not getting too far in the planning program, then look at the catalog again.
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Winterpromise?
