Hello- Bible/History/Geography with SCM vs Ambleside Online

Lorna,

I’m so glad everyone on here was a big help to you!  I actually used Susan Wise Bauer’s, “Story of the World,” our first year when I began with SCM.  And at that time, it was on the SCM booklist.  You see we started with SCM then like yourself, I saw AO and thought how wonderful it appeared, but then of course, decided to switch back to SCM.

I share your weariness in spending money on a book you’re not sure will work.  Believe me when I say, this is an ongoing stress in our household, because my husband is the only one employed and he is extremely thrifty!  Though I am on board with saving a buck or two!  There really is no way of knowing if you’ll like the book before  purchasing, however, I had this belief that SCM would not let us down!  I looked up the books on the internet prior to see if I could get a sneak peak, like for example, AMAZON will give you one for most of their books, or I just did some research to see if it made sense along with the curriculum.  I looked up the authors, like Susan Wise Baer to get a little background and that helped…I’m a researcher!  All in all, SCM has made great suggestions thus far.  One of our favorites from AO and SCM is the Burgess series.  I was nervous to let it go when we decided to no longer do AO, but then was so overjoyed, when I saw it was apart of the 106 Days of Creation series!  Most books recommended by AO are on the SCM booklist as well.  The goal is no TWADDLE, but I’m sure you knew that.  I have found discrespencies in some books from both, but nothing major to where I couldn’t make the correction when being read to my kids.  Overall, all of the books I have used from both have been great!  SCM however, are just a tad more refreshing to us.  For example, the Pathway Readers are wonderful…these were suggested our first year with SCM.  Where there I go again, lol!   I hope all I said was again helpful.  Take good care and warm wishes to you on your journey!

Shannon

I don’t care for The Story of the World, personally. I know many like it, but I don’t care for the writing or the tone.

Okay, Lorna, I was going to stay out of this discussion since I haven’t used AO – I’ve read their schedules and lists and really like some of their stuff – but have no desire to have four levels of every subject going at the same time. 😉

Here is my first response to your comment: 

My issue has been with the SCM history/geography books for the family— This past year, we did “Famous Men of Greece.”  I have to admit that my history is NOT a strong point.  I could memorize textbooks well for the test that allowed me to do well in school!  But I can’t remember much of anything!!  So I am excited to really learn along with the children.  So perhaps my background made it so that I was not able to wrap my brain around the different people as well as I would have liked.  Maybe I need to read some sort of history book to help with the background? 

I have used 1-1/2 history guides from SCM, and like their layout very much – I just struggled with Famous Men of Greece as my spine since I didn’t know enough about Greek history to even know who these men were and where they fit into the grand scheme of the history! I found Heritage History and the Yesterday Classics collection and started writing my own history plans with The Story of Greece as my spine and using Famous Men of Greece as an additional biography as we come upon those men in the spine. Shortly after I did that, SCM revised their Ancient history guides and now use other books for the spine. 

The new guides use Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors for Ancient Egypt, The Story of the Greeks from Nothing New Press (4th edition) for Ancient Greece, and The Story of the Romans from Nothing New Press for Ancient Rome. All of those books are comprehensive histories, which means that they will start at the beginning of the civilization and follow it to the end, so to speak. If you have not looked at the new guide samples, I encourage you to download them and really carefully look at them. They are really quite good and it might make it easier to enjoy them. I have read the Greek and Roman one and enjoyed them. It actually made the Famous Men books make sense to me. 😉

So I am thinking I would like to stick with SCM but include AO’s books as they fit.  But the tricky part is— How do I know if the SCM books are not suitable/living enough/engaging before I buy them/order them at the library? 

You can read the samples on Amazon and ask for specific title information on the forum, but I have to say that in my experience, it is very rare for me to find a book that SCM recommends that I really dislike. Some are better than others, of course, but mostly they are great. If you find some that you don’t like, resell it at the end of the year and use it to buy other books.  You will have similar experiences with all book lists.

I have a question– realizing if we stick with SCM, and I repeat the modules 2 times per kid for the 12 years I am blessed to teach each one, then they will “miss” some of the age levels.  For example, if we do Genesis-Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt in Grade 1 for a child, he gets it again at Grade 7.  But then he never does the Grade 9-12 level work.  I know there will be gaps in his education but, to be honest, I don’t trust myself enough to make those choices. . .

Ahhh, the gaps syndrome!  Even if your child never studies the Ancients in high school, but he had the rare and wonderful opportunity to study them in depth for a year in 6-8th grades, he is still going to be streets ahead of the other students in PS. He’ll have a solid foundation to build his knowledge of the modern history on, and he will be able to make connections between the cultures of that time with our modern world. You don’t have to teach him everything…your ultimate goal is that he will continue to learn all his life. He will cover any gaps that he has during this time – and it is okay!  I just ran across this blog post in my reader yesterday and printed it out to re-read and ponder. It is about leading our chilldren to the feast – and our resposibility as the teacher. It might be helpful to you: 

http://wildflowersandmarbles.com/2014/05/13/charlotte-mason-teaching-tuesday-open-doors-to-avenues-of-delight/

 I want to make sure he reads Plutarch and Shakespeare and others that I feel are an important part of his education. ..

Have you considered getting the SCM Planning Your CM Education book?  This book is wonderful for helping YOU decide what is important to YOUR children’s education and helps you decide what to teach, when to teach it, and how to schedule it for yourself. Truly a personalized, tailored education. This is when I decided that I wanted to do more Shakespeare and Plutarch than SCM calls for, so I added it to my own plan, a la AO. Love it! It helps every time I am planning anything to have that 12 Year Big Picture. I may change a resource or two, but my ultimate goals/plans are there to help me stay on track. 

You are mentioning the geography books. Have you seen the new SCM geography Visits to series? We really like the two we’ve used. The additional books are living and engaging. My children are enjoy the spines for those. 

Here is a link to the SCM Learning Library where Sonya shares her thoughts on choosing living books. Perhaps there will be something there that sparks your interest:

http://simplycharlottemason.com/category/living-books-2/

This has turned into a novel and I didn’t mean it to be one. I just wanted to share a few things and encourage you!

I didn’t think Story of the World was that bad. It had way more information that I learned with my kids, than I did when I was in school.  Like I said, our education is focused around Bible.  So, as far as views go, I look over those because our family is grounded in the scriptures/truth.  When it comes to History, I made sure my kids understood that it is always about rise and fall.  Descrepencies for me would be if facts did not line up with the Bible/scriptures.  I’ve come to learn that there is no flawless History book out there.  Again, it depends on your goal and what you want your child(ren) to learn and understand.  The only and best view for us, is God’s. 

Back to the stress part…my advice would be, to keep it simple.  My husband saw me nearly lose it and almost made a decision to send our boys to public school as much as he didn’t really want to. But I am thankful for him, because I’m a complex thinker and he helped me to see things realistically.   I’m still learning and trying to figure things out, but I’m slowly coming along and realizing that it’s about the children and making sure they have a rich and enjoyable education.  As CM and Sonya says, our kids are people, not machines we dump information in.  So, I remind myself of this, when I begin to make things too complicated.  I appreciate your post, I feel like I’m looking in the mirror, lol!  But I love we mothers have this connection and support system.

Shannon

That is the nice thing about AO. Most of the books are free online. That can be a downside too, but so far we’ve enjoyed it. It was part of what pushed me to AO though. I just couldn’t spend the money SCM requires and I love all the ebooks – we travel in the winter.

I’m glad this was mentioned because the free e-books is what originally drove me to AO.  But then as it turned out, once I got into the curriculum, I still had to buy more books.  This was disappointing, because the free e-books is what sold my husband, but then I would go to him on several occassions letting him know, that I had to purchase books.  It could just be me, but I actually spent less with SCM because the e-books would actually come out cheaper than having to buy from AMAZON and paying for shipping/handling for the books that weren’t availble for free and with Project Gutenburg. There were some e-books I purchased for our Kindle for AO, and some were free and some weren’t.  So, I wasn’t too thrilled in the end.  I thought I would save more money the AO way and that unfortunately did not happen.  Either way, money had to be spent.  Let’s just say my library is stocked well!

Shannon