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New to SCM from MFW
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Hello!
My name is Mariah, we just finished up our first year of homeschooling. I have two children, my daughter just finished 2nd grade and a 2 year old son. We did Adventures in My Father’s World from MFW and had a wonderful time. I have purchased ECC {Exploring Countries and Cultures} already for next year, but I am feeling a strong pull to SCM. I am a little nervous/scared/excited/paniced/confused to have God redirect our paths already, but I am really excited to have found SCM!
My questions are these:
– would you recommend returning ECC, and starting with Module 1 right away?
– If I kept ECC and did that for 3rd grade, then we would start module 1 for 4th grade (with a 4 year old tag-along), not finishing the modules until 9th grade. Is starting them over for 10th grade and only getting those 3 modules repeated a problem? Has anyone combined modules in high school to get them all in again?
I appreciate any advice you can give me as I try to sort this all out in my head!
Thanks!
Mariah
Hi Mariah, welcome!
If you are feeling pulled to SCM, and can return ECC for a full refund – I’d probably lean towards that. If you wouldn’t get a full refund… then that is a bigger decision… lol.
As for going through the 6 year cycle once, then having only time for 3 or 4 of the modules a second time – there would be a lot of different options…
– People have combined some of the modules…
– Just do the first 3 or 4 over again (knowing that your child did the other ones at an old enough age to get a fair bit from… that is, they were the same age as a similar child that had gone through the module twice… so they probably got a similar amount of information out of it….
– Pick the ones your famliy enjoyed most / have the most interest in…
– Do something else completely…
Basically – I’d say don’t worry about it at this point! It is still 6 years away, and you may have different insights into the question at that time.
hth!
Welcome, Mariah! I’m not sure what to tell you about ECC. I wanted to throw out another idea to you, though. Instead of 6 years and 4 years for the history rotation, you could do 5 years plus 5 years and work the first 3 modules into two years by modifying the guides a bit and deleting or doubling up on some lessons. That is my plan for now. And the 4 year old tag-along will probably absorb more than you’d think. I’ll pray for you to make the right decision for your family.
As far as learning about countries and cultures, you do map drills in SCM and learn a little about culture as it comes up. For example, you learn about ancient egyptian culture and Old Testament culture in module 1. You learn about the holy land in Ann Voskamp’s book in module 2.
We add in a country of the month to study about one day a week to focus on their culture now. We read a few books on that country. We sometimes watch a travel show. There is a recent post on geography which you may find helpful as you make your decision. http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/how-to-make-geography-and-history-more-fun I hope that helps. Perhaps someone who has used ECC may be of more help to you.
Hi Mariah! We are finishing up ECC this year and switching to SCM history modules in the fall. I’m also combining the ancient history modules because I like to make more work for myself.
We really enjoyed Adventures, and ECC has been okay. It was the books selected for MFW’s ancient history course that had me looking elsewhere this spring. Some parts of ECC were difficult for my son (age 8) because the science book was too advanced for him, and I was disappointed that we didn’t use one of the books as it was for 5th grade+. MFW does a terrific job of pulling the science, geography, music, & art into a unit study, but I’m realizing that I don’t like unit studies.
My son has learned about the cultures & locations of many countries, and the missionary stories have been wonderful. I did find that we all enjoyed memorizing country location via the free http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm rather than the geography game in ECC. Besides the missionary stories, I would not say the texts used in ECC are living books. Most are Usborne or textbook-like with interesting facts & pictures. So I think you could do ECC, and you might really enjoy it. But if you’re heart is already steering you away from it, looking into returning ECC would be a good way to go.
The Smith & Schafer families at SCM are great to work with and encourage you to use what they provide as tools for you to use, not as your master to rule over your school (though I don’t know if they’d word it quite that way.)
Hi!
We LOVED Adventures here! I used it 5 years ago with my twins and again this year with my youngest daughter. We didn’t use MFW science though – we used SCM 106 days instead… I bought ECC after Adventures 5 years ago. We started it with high hopes coming off Adventures and were sorely disappointed! For us, it was very boring and school was no longer a time of fun and adventure. We switched to Creation to the Greeks very soon thereafter. As I have gained confidence as a homeschooler over the years, we have moved away from MFW for older grades but I just had to do Adventures with my youngest and so we did.
I love SCM and over time have switched over to more and more of these materials. I would encourage you to take a closer look at ECC – do a couple days of lessons just to get a feel. I knew almost right away we had made a mistake with ECC and I know others (though certainly not everyone!) have struggled with it as well.
Best wishes in your decision!
Thank you ladies so much for all the info and thoughts!
After sleeping on this for a few nights, I am still thinking hard about it. HA! I would try to sell ECC {I got it used, with the 7th grade supplement, for a steal!}, but that seems like rather a hassle right now! In looking at ECC and the geography in SCM, am I right to say it is almost completely different?! ECC seems to focus more on the cultures, with a little geography game here and there, and little to no map work. From looking at the handbooks samples, SCM will study the country through books, highlighting the geography in a country, then having students reinforce what they learned through mapwork weekly. {We love map work!} I may just teach ECC without looking at the manual so much, and I did have Zoology 3 from Apologia that I planned to supplement the science with.
Before finding SCM, I had actually planned to incorporate many CM methods into our homeschool {without realizing they are CM methods!} this next year. We will do poetry and copywork, shakespeare, nature study, hymn study, artists study, a Chronicles of Narnia literature study, etc. For other subjects, we used Saxon math {what a nightmare…}, Easy Grammar, and All About Spelling. We are switching up math, going to try Teaching Textbooks. We started out with Primary Language Lessons, and my daughter wasn’t enjoying them at all, so we switched to Easy Grammar. She asks to do EG first everyday and wants to stick with it. AAS is supposed to be wonderful, but I am still waiting for that feeling. We went through level 2 AND 3 this year. She flies right through the lessons, knows the rules before I even finish trying to tell her what they are, and I find myself trying to spread out the lessons over 2 days just so I am not spending a fortune on spelling curriculum in one year. She seems to be a really good guesser, or a natural speller! Has anyone else had a child like this? Would Spelling Wisdom be a good switch for her, or should I stick with AAS?
All in all, I think I will use this next year to make the transition to SCM, then I will start with module 1 for 4th grade (and make any other CM transitions I feel necessary). If I double up on the last 2 modules for 8th grade, she will have gone through them all before high school. Then we can decide where to go from there at that point! I was wondering though, do you create history notebooks, besides the timeline, with SCM? My daughter enjoys creating scrapbooks from her work, so that was something I was thinking about. Do you put narrations/mapwork/extra things like lapbooks or history pockets in a notebook?
Sorry this is so long and there are so many questions! I have a lot of ideas I am trying to toss around in my head!
Thank you all so much and Happy Mother’s Day!
@Mariah – I would seriously double up on the first modules, not the last. They are not trying to cover both American and World history in the first three. The last three have more “stuff” to cover and so are not as easily doubled up.
And, yes, we make history notebooks, usually containing their written and drawn narrations, and the occasional paper that we add to round out a topic. Their mapwork is in the same notebook, but in a different section for easier locating.
I would totally try Spelling Wisdom. It is so effective and inexpensive (like all SCM products we’ve tried). It is also a bonus to have my girls hear a quote and know who said it just from their Spelling Wisdom passages. Pretty cool.
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