Highschool Notrass or MFW

I’ve been considering Notgrass’s World history for my soon to be 10th grader.  I have not looked at the MFW for high school.  I will take a look at it.  I do like the book choices for Notgrass’s class.  I can’t wait to hear from others!

Blessings, Betty

I hopped over to MFW and noticed that price is a big difference between the two.  I also don’t care for some of the book choices in the MFW.  I think with just the Notgrass and then adding in any other books from AO, that my daughter’s 10th grade will be full enough.  The MFW seems like it’s got too much, and quite a bit of busywork. Although I really like the World History Map Activities book (I might add that to Notgrass).

That said, we will be doing either an IEW co-op next year or maybe a different writing class online.  We hope to do Notgrass, along with some AO selections, Apologia Chemistry, and Spanish, and Driver’s Ed so I think our schedule will be full enough. I hope this is helpful in some way.

Is your son enjoying MfW and able to keep up with the schedule. Approximatly how long does it take him each day?

My son would say “He doesn’t usually enjoy school.”  That’s my boy.  He is, however, able to keep up with schedule.  He likes to read in the am.  So He spends the first couple of hours of his day reading all that is assigned and answering any of the questions that are assigned.   I would say he works on MFW stuff for 2-3 hours each day except Wednesday. After that he works on math and chemistry. Wednesday is band and choir day. He does catch-up work on Wed. afternoon.

Is there much on your part, that you need to do?

No there is not that much that I need to do.  It is expected that the parent have a meeting time once a week to go over the answers to the questions in the Bible Study and any other assignments of the week. I use Home school Tracker and go over that once a week too. I do try to keep up with the Bible readings that he is doing. MFW makes a schedule for the parent.  Sadly I am behind right now,maybe by a week or so. My friend, who is also using MFW AHL, has her husband doing the Bible Study with her son.  I think that is a neat thing for father and son to do together.

Why do you prefer to use MFW over just Notgrass alone?

Well I really hadn’t studied up on the Notgrass before I purchased MFW AHL.  So it wasn’t a matter of preferring one over the other.  We have been using MFW for several years now and I wanted to try out this high school material.  I have enjoyed not having to plan out everything for my son.  There are times that I think it would be better if we didn’t have the guide but I really think we do better in our family with someone else telling us what to do. I have to say that when reading this forum I think it is wonderful how the other families seem so organized and able to accomplish and decide what to read, write, narrate, and how much of everything each child should do.  But I am weak in decision making and often want to do it all. Then we quickly become overwhelmed.  The MFW guide keeps us grounded and we move forward. We have had our rabbit trails in the past too.

You could use just the Notgrass and then their guide for literature, etc.  It is just different.  You would have to plan more yourself then. I do have a friend that does it this way and it seems to work well for their family. I just like the way MFW put it altogether for us.  Last summer I started figuring out what we would read and it looked so similar to MFW, I thought I may as well try their plan. MFW does not use every lit. book that Notgrass does.  They have the student do the Bible Study question and the review questions but not the quiz and exam book.  They add some other historical reading from other textbooks as well. I suppose that is why it costs so much more.

From that list of lit that you wrote up — my son had to read The Cat of Bubastes this year.  Last year when we were studying 1850-Modern times he read The Hiding Place, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and To Kill a Mockingbird 

We decided against Up From Slavery  — too difficult at the time and Christi — mature theme he wasn’t ready for at that time.

He has also read Pilgrim’s Progress, Little Women, and Eric Liddell(a differnt author though) in other years.

It looks like a great high school reading list though. I pray God will guide you as you make decisons for the fall. I hope I have been some help to you.  I feel like I rambled on a bit too much.

Blessings

Suzq

Certainly Heather, PM me anytime with questions.

Suzq