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Keep the kids studying together or let the high schooler go off on her own?
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I am trying to nail down our plans for next year. My kids will be in 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th grades. Thus far I have had the kids studying the same time period, this coming year the younger kids will be studying Modern Times.
I am having a hard time deciding what to do with my 9th grader. I am thinking about having her do MFW Ancient History & Lit., but part of me would like to keep the kids studying the same thing. What do you all do with your high schoolers? Is it better to let them go out on their own more or keep the family together? I would love to here your thoughts.
I am thinking if I keep her with us, I would have her follow Notgrass Exploring American History.
I would also love to hear from anyone who used MFW Ancient History & Lit. Did you all like it? Was it too much?
Thanks!
I know many people do keep their kids together and I think it’s a great thing to have the whole family studying the same history period! However, if you do that I think you need to be very on the ball in developing essay questions and going deeper w/the high schooler. Many people do that and can do it well. I just didn’t have the confidence. After some research, I decided on MFW for high school(did lots of questioning/research on the WTM forums, and have a friend who uses it). But….now dd is going to a small Christian high school so it’s a moot point:)
I’ve used MFW for 7 years and am switching my oldest to SCM. The reason I did not select MFW AHL was it was very rigorous and college prep and not much Charlotte Mason methods, imho. Since my kids are 10th, 4th, and 3rd this year, my high school is going “on her own” to SCM and my younger 2 will continue with MFW. Not sure if that helps in your decision making process, but it took me several weeks in March/April to come to that conclusion. We had planned to stick with AHL for high school, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt it didn’t meet our family’s goals and learning style.
My oldest had been “independent” for a couple years and I had hoped to bring them all together last year with MFW (ECC), but found that my oldest still preferred studying separate for most subjects. I think some depends upon the child and in our case, I think the 6 year “gap” also makes it harder. If there were another child betwen the 10th and 4th grader, we may have done more together once the younger ones started K. So do what works for your kids… there isn’t a “right way”. Personally, I would love for it to be family learning, but I think the age-difference makes it very difficult.I’ve also done MFW for seven years and this year I’m switching the youngest to Truth Quest and keeping the 11th and 12th graders in MFW. I personally am just in a place where I need to get away from checking off boxes. Last year I felt like I was just getting things done and not thinking or enjoying learning. I needed the structure when I started MFW but now I’m at a different place.
My oldest two are used to it and working some so it’s good for them to have their own schedule. I don’t know if I’ll use MFW high school for any of the younger ones. It is very rigorous and college prep, as was already stated, and I don’t know if it’s a good fit for my younger kids. My dd is starting 9th this year and has struggled in some ways (auditory processing issues) and I’m afraid MFW would take the joy out of learning for her. I also have a hard time keeping up with what my olders are all doing when they’re on their own. I think if I give my dd more of a Charlotte Mason education and keep some subjects with everyone else, I can keep an eye on her and adjust things to her needs.
Definitely do what suits your family. MFW was what we needed for a while and it’s definitely thorough and some people love it.
Btw, my boys though Notgrass World History was boring but I don’t know about the American History. They said it was more like being talked at than a living book. I need to sell my world history set if anyone wants it!:)
I have kids entering 5th, 8th, 8/9th and 11th this fall, and while we’ve been having the three age groups work independently for the past few years, I am bringing them back together for history this year. They’ll have individual reading assignments, but at least one history reading and read-aloud will be done together each day. My middle kids are saying they didn’t get as much out of history last year (we’ve used HOD for them for the past three years), and I think it’s partly because we were all doing different things, and we lost that element of socratic discussion we had when we were combining some of our history studies. I’m hoping we can recapture that and am obsessing about possible curriculum choices right now…
In terms of Notgrass, I can share that we tried to use the Notgrass World History this year with the high schooler, and we both found it ininspiring, and worse, incomplete. It seemed to zoom through important parts of history without giving an understanding as to the hows, whys and personalities, and then spend a long time on things like culture of other countries. We actually found an AP history textbook passed to us by a former teacher to be more interesting, if that gives you any idea!
What a great discussion, this is exactly what I’ve been pondering! Our children are in 5th, 8th, and 10th grades and I’m STILL researching History for us! After purchasing 2 different curricula (both MFW and BiblioPlan), we are at a crossroads now. I have gone through both curricula with a fine tooth comb and although they both are excellent programs, I am having a difficult time sticking with either. I don’t want to overload my children with simply history “facts,” but would rather they learn to enjoy and see God’s hand in everything. I have also looked into Truthquest History, which is a wonderful program as well, but missing the more lesson plan-type of planning that I need. SCM seems to be what we are looking for, but I wonder if we should have our 10th grader do SCM independently and just continue our 5th and 8th grade children with MFW Exploration to 1850. Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much! 😉
Jackie
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