A Gentle Feast?

Crystal, the credits listed for grades 10 – 12 are: 1 credit science, 1/2 credit American History, 1/2 credit world history, 1 credit fine arts, 1 credit English, 1/2 credit government and economics, 1 math, 1 foreign language, possible electives are Bible, handicrafts, geography.

Doug, the other ladies did well at laying out the differences. I think SCM is a high quality company and all your resources are beautifully done! Some things that swayed me this year are…

Price – when I put all the resources for the enrichment studies, history, individual lesson plans, Bible study ect. In my cart, it really added up. I don’t find your products expensive, just more than I can spend right now.

Your products are excellent but like I said in my earlier post, I was just in the mood for “easy.” I made one purchase and everything is planned.

Four year history cycle – maybe my attention span is too short or maybe I’ll change my mind on this later but I just don’t want to spend 3 years on ancients.

The student pack that correlates with what we’re studying keeps me on task and insures I have something physical to show my evaluator at the end of the year.

The other thing is that some of us homeschool moms like to try new things and find what works best. My senior will use SCM history as was already planned, but my younger children and I will give A Gentle Feast a try next year. If it doesn’t work well for us and/or we’re in a different place financially etc… We know where to find some great CM  products!😉

Doug,

Since you asked for feedback, I figured I would share my experience with discovering SCM curriculum. I originally found SCM when doing a Google search for reviews of Math U See. Google directed me to the SCM forum, and so naturally I started browsing the rest of the site. Maybe I’m behind the curve, but it was at least a year of browsing the SCM site before I realized that SCM was a curriculum company, not just a bookstore of Charlotte Mason resources. Now that I’ve discovered the SCM curriculum, I am sold. I love having it all planned for me. We’re using mostly SCM for next school year, and now that I own the guides and additional resources, I am not swayed by things like A Gentle Feast. When I compare the two, I prefer SCM. However, if I had decided a year ago that I wanted to go full CM methods for school, I probably wouldn’t have used SCM, simply because I didn’t know  that you offered a (mostly) full curriculum. So to answer your question, yes, I do think that the issue is that you all haven’t communicated everything you have to offer in a curriculum. I hope this helps!

Doug – I wonder if maybe there is a way to have a one year Ancients course that does NOT use the bible as the main source (so just a year with things more Greece, Rome, and other early civilizations with a lighter coverage of Biblical civilizations) and then a separate Biblical history course that could be used as a full year or as a once or twice a week supplement for several  years? It would give people the option to keep the Biblical grounding but spread in out while they are moving forward in a more typical 4 year cycle. This reminds me more of having multiple streams of history – a biblical stream, then whatever time period they are in of the 4 year cycle.

I know we already add in our own Church history too (LDS) where it fits chronologically as well as our own scripture reading that includes more than just the Bible (though we love lots of Bible reading too so we do that every year too!), and many Catholic families I know do the same thing to their own history curriculum adding studying saints and such.

I purchased the original white year.  I contemplated using it last year, contemplated using it this coming year (the green year instead).  The reality is that while I liked A Gentle Feast on first inspection, I don’t care for it the further I dug.  I dislike reading books online and there are several throughout the year that would have to be used online.  Some books are VERY hard to come by and VERY expensive if you do come across them.

I also tweak things (even my SCM modules) so there is no point for me to purchase something that is so thoroughly laid out the way AGF is when I know I’ll tweak.  I was interested in the geography reader for green yr form 3 so I read the sample on Amazon.  A Voyage Long and Strange sounded so intriguing.  Upon reading the prologue I noted immediately that the author states that while he was driving around he decided to stop somewhere for beer.  Hmm.  Not horrible but this is the start of the book.  What’s the point of writing that?  Does it add value?  No.  I pressed forward.  Ch 1 pg 12 talks about Eirik the Red and mentions that his wife converted to Christianity and “refused to sleep with her pagan husband ‘much to his ‘displeasure'”.  I honestly don’t care for my 7th grader to read that.  A sentence later the author mentions that Eirik had an illigitement daughter who was hotheaded and homicidal like her father.  While I don’t shelter my children as much as some, I don’t want to hand them a book that is full of this sort of talk.  It’s not needed.  We have such little time to read, we are supposed to give them the best of the best.  If these three incidents are in the first 12 pages what else is to come in the book?

Lastly, I asked the creator of AGF (who is very kind and gracious) about subbing out particular books due to expense (one of the science books is near impossible to find) she said that it is doable but she strongly stressed not doing so with particular books.  She suggested that we use our library.  The library is hard if a) you live in a small town like us with no interlibrary loans b) you are using that book over a term or year.

I am  cautious because she put together books for 2 different years of plans both with 4 different forms.  That is a LOT of work to accomplish well on your own.  Was she able to read all of the books?  How discerning is she (that became my concern after reading the geography reader sample on Amazon).

Lastly, while in theory all kids will be in the same “span” of history, it is different and not quite what I thought it would be.  Form 2 kids would be reading Our Island Story and getting the history of Britain.  I had hoped the same coverage for my form 3 but she emailed me and said that she wanted to move away from Britain for form 3 and have the children get more world history.  It’s similar and yet not similar at all to SCM.  With SCM I understand that my older kids will be reading different books than my younger students and will get more depth BUT they will still be in the same period, general events, etc.

I wish the author the best of luck with AGF.  I pray that it blesses others.  For now, I’m thoroughly content with SCM history modules and the ability to tweak them to my hearts content.  Example:  module 6 term 2.  We finished reading Wright Brothers early and Where Poppies Grow so I’ve thrown in a bio of Sergeant York and a bio of Winston Churchill.  It’s just so thoroughly doable with SCM.  When we go back to module 1 next year, we will use it for Bible and Egypt but my kids have requested a British/American thread so we’ll meander and take our time going over British history (utilizing TQ) simultaneously with module 1.

Side note – if you need to print PDF materials from anywhere or other printing needs, the best prices I’ve found are online at Best Value Copy.  Less than $0.10 for color copies.  I do this for math mammoth and misc other stuff yearly.

I looked a lot at AGF but ultimately, I decided to stay with SCM.  I really hate when an entire year is planned out for me like AGF does.  I absolutely LOVE the flexibility of SCM products.  I don’t want everything combined into one guide.  I like having options for what will work for us each year.

I would love an option for a one year Ancients year.  I plan to combine the 3 ancients modules for an Ancient history and Bible credit when my kids get to high school.  It would be nice to have it already planned out for me (but really it’s not a huge deal.) I do think that the slower pace for ancients is great for younger kids though.

My main wish for SCM is to offer “packages” for each history/Bible/geography guide and for each Enrichment guide.  It would be soooooo nice to just add “Genesis/ Egypt family studies+ books for grades1-6” into my cart and call it a day.  I’m envisioning book packs available for each age range listed in the guide that you can add to your cart in addition to the “family studies” bundle.  I suppose you could also offer book packs for the geography guides too since some people use those as a stand alone curriculum.  Of course, having all materials offered in a package deal for the Enrichment guide would be wonderful as well!  I’m sure that would be a TON of work, but it is still my wish 🙂

My main reason for considering AGF is because it seems to align more with what I’ve been learning about a CM education through listening to the ADE Podcast episodes.

Last summer, I had a consultation with the ADE ladies which was extremely in-depth and helpful in wrapping my head around a CM education. At the end of the consult, I was emailed a complete plan for our year which included book suggestions for each subject for the Forms my children were in, suggestions for which subjects/books to combine as much as we could as a family, as well as scheduling cards to help me plan out our day in keeping our lessons short as Charlotte instructed. I went full force with it and we had a successful year. It made me love the CM Philosophy so much more.

The reason I am highly considering using AGF over going with the ADE ladies again is because I LOVE how AGF is open and go and all ready for me to use. I just need to have the books on hand and we are good to go. I am terrible at planning, so having it already done for me is like a breath of fresh air. I have yet to purchase anything from AGF so I cannot speak more in-depth of it, but from what I’ve seen/read, it looks like it is very flexible where you can tweak it however you like. Huge plus for me! The AGF student packets are, honestly, what sold me. Also, AGF seems to follow the same History Streams as outlined by ADE which I love as well.

All that to say, there is truly not a one size fits all Homeschool Philosphy/curriculum/program. And I love that we have options. I love that we have homeschool moms and dads willing to share with us what they have learned to help encourage us in our homeschool journeys. I love several of the SCM products and will continue to purchase them…Picture Study Portfolios, Shakespeare Guides, Music Study Guides, and Spelling Wisdom.

Thank you for hearing our feedback and allowing us a safe place to come and discuss our many options and learn from one another! 🙂

I have a love/hate relationship with all in one guides.  On the surface it seems more organized to have it all in one place.  But I am one of those obsessed with box checking and it bothers me when there are sections of the grid that I must either ignore or cross through and change. I suppose it is kin to my yearly dilemma of wanting an all in one, done for me curriculum and also wanting the freedom to customize our schooling to our individual needs.  The SCM guides are thorough without being overwhelming.  I find I sometimes add to it, but never feel I need to delete or ignore offerings found in the SCM guides.  I personally find a mix of AO with SCM to be the best fit for us.  I have looked, and will look again at the gentle feast offerings.  But, SCM has a permanent place in our homeschooling.