Hello! I have a 1st grader (and tagalong K and preK and baby) this year. We began with Beautiful Feet Books Early American History and while I love the books, the schedule and guide isn’t exactly what we want. So we’re using it as a book list. I was thinking after this of continuing with SCM Modules into modern America, but had the thought that maybe I should just buy the Early American Module now and try to catch up with the Story of America and Story of the Nations if we want to continue with it. Has anyone added BFB books to the Early American Module? We’re still in the pilgrims so we haven’t gotten very far. Is it fairly easy to add books to the SCM modules? Thanks for any input!
I would not worry about combining and then trying to “catch up”. Your kidos are still quite young, there is no rush 🙂
I would either continue using the BF books as you are just reading and enjoying.
or switch to SCM and just start with lesson 1 and start reading through the books add in some of the BF books if you want to.
SCM is great because it is “enough” but if you decide to add to it there is space for that. For us we have pretty much just used SCM as written with out adding to the books and we have really enjoyed our years, this is out 6th year using the SCM history guides.
Don’t worry about repeating years either. If you finish BF this year and do the same time period next year your kids will be a year older and even if you repeat books (not sure how much cross over of books there are) they will gather new information.
We started with BFB and really enjoyed the relaxed guide and copywork, character and Bible lessons, with coloring pages from d’Aulaire books to go in their primary notebooks. It is a nice keepsake book now. We switched to SCM books near the end of module 5 where BFB left off (I think we added Buffalo Bill and something else) and went on to enjoy SCM history module 6 for modern American. We skipped some of the world history the first time through with early elementary children. And we kept adding to that history notebook we started with BFB. I think there is a lot of overlap in book titles used in both BFB and SCM. What is it you don’t like about the BFB guide? What are you looking for? At first, I thought it was too light and not “guiding” enough. But we stuck with it and that was a really enjoyable year for history.
I think I would like it better for a 3rd grader, actually. The copywork and projects would be better suited.
I personally didn’t love the character lessons in the guide. And also I found that when you follow a lot of CM curriculum, EVERY subject tries to be CM and since we were already doing ELTL I didn’t see the need to do copywork for that and history. We read and narrate. Sometimes do picture/drawing narrations and I write them down. It’s just a better fit for us. I didn’t want to memorize their poems, etc either. Again – not every subject needs to incorporate poetry and memorization and copywork.
Otherwise it is a great curriculum with some great books! I am adding a few to add in some extra perspective also.
Thanks for the feedback!
How do people feel about Stories of America and Stories of the Nations? Maybe I’ll just buy those to read along with our BFB books.
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