I’m enjoying this tread as well. This year i’m using MFW Adventures with my 3rd grader and we’re enjoying it. My original plan was to continue on with ECC next year, but after looking over everything on the MFW website and reading reviews about it, i’m not certain that we’ll be doing that now. I do love the look of the high school programs, but decided to just use Exploring World History with my own lit. selections and it has been working nicely.
MFW does actually come out and say that as your student moves into the High School years…the curriculum becomes much more Classical, and less CM. And again, it becomes EXTREMELY hard to combine all your students. We have 9th, 6th, 3rd, and 1st. Using MFW, it was recommended I use THREE! different programs. Completely setting our family up to be overwhelmed.
Again, the heart of MFW is WONDERFUL…but I think large families will find it a hard curriculum to use.
I sent you a PM regarding this previous post, but haven’t heard back. I hope you’re still on this discussion forum! I also tried both of the links to your blogs, but they were no longer there. Hope all is wel, God bless!
I want to read more of this thread! I am about half way through it.
I have more to say, but for now I just wanted to add that I am another who feels God slowly closing our 3 1/2 year open door to MFW and leading us here. We liked MFW K, loved MFW 1, struggled through ADV for various reasons, and I am currently pulling from ECC what I think will best benefit my children. Then we will be done.
Thank you for starting this thread and blog it is well timed for me.
P.S. I just realized this thread is a year old and that the links no longer work!
It was still very helpful to read as I feel God leading me away from MFW to the Modules and a stronger Bible & CM focus in our homeschool. Thank you ladies for the helpful thread.
I have been reading books on CM for a year now while I have questioned MFW for our family. I would describe MFW as having the following: strong classical leanings in the book choices, beautiful selections in the deluxe package for reading, very hands on learning focused, unit study, school type work sheets, and including some CM elements but not as a main focus.
Hi lovinghomeschool! Did you mean that “gratitude” was your name on the MFW board? If so, I totally remember you! I am like you on the MFW switch as well. As much as I love the company and hold them dear to my heart, we are moving away from them this year. We started with RtR and AHL in July, but have finally decided that it’s just not working for us. We had also added Mystery of History 2 with it and loved the Biblical focus of the lessons, but it was just too much shoveling down of information for our children. CM has been on my mind for the past 2 years, but only until recently did I join the forum and do some more research. I have read so much wonderful encouragement and information here! The reasons I had chosen MFW in the first place were the Biblical and CM focus in their packages. The Biblical focus is wonderful, but it seems that as the cycle progresses, it strays away from the little CM that is does have. I don’t want to shove my children full of just information. I want them to enjoy learning and see God’s hand in everything they do.
I would love to hear how you’re making SCM work for your family, especially since you’re familiar with changing from MFW to SCM. I am nervous, especially with counting grades/credits for my 9th grade dd.
Hi Jackie! Yes, I have been gratitude on the MFW board. I choose MFW for the Bible and Bible integration into the history as well. It is MFW actually that led me to start researching CM more around 1 1/2 years ago. The more I read CM the more I see how ties our educational beliefs and values into her educational style. Scripture is so foundational for real knowledge & wisdom and the more I read of this board and about CM in practice the more I am seeing elements of what I want for our homeschool.
I love MFW’s Bible translation focus. I have realized over time though that it is the curriculum itself that we interact with day after day. MFW1 is still my favorite MFW program. The higher we go the more it has felt like school to me and the less it has felt like the real engaging learning I have wanted in our home school. If that makes sense? Marie has some great living books in the deluxe packages, but the spines in ECC are very dry to me & difficult to teach from. My research of the books in the history cycle over the past two years is much of what made me question it as being a good fit for our family.
We started back mid August and I am in the process of making our days more CM and less MFW driven. So I am not much help since we are still in the process of transition. I am really feeling led to Module 1 for the start of our history cycle sometime this school year when I have pulled from ECC the elements I would like us to finish. The 6 year history cycle makes so much sense to me as it has the time for depth and the life of Jesus; Jesus in one week for the RTR table of contents didn’t sit well with me.
So I haven’t used any Modules at this point. The Table of Contents looks wonderful. I would be interested too in hearing someone’s experience in coming from MFW and starting the Modules.
You are far ahead of me with H.S. credits. My oldest just turned 10.
This thread is a little bit like God confirming my choices. We are 14 weeks into CTG, having been a MFW family except for 1st grade. I loved Adventures, but really struggled through ECC. I thought maybe it was just “me” so we pushed forward. Since week 3 in CTG, I’ve taken out and added until it isn’t MFW anymore…..and our day still doesn’t look like what I want it to. We aren’t learning the things I want to.
For the rest of the Ancients we are using the All Throuh the Ages book and selecting literature from there. I think we’ll continue with that plan, although it’s quite scary for me!
I wish the original blog link worked, it seems like some good info could have been gained from it.
I know this thread is old, but I am wondering what people use who have left MFW? I want my kids to have a love for missions so I am using ECC as our geography and missions curriculum. I just started so I am still trying to figure it out. I added What do people Eat and Material world from scm. I plan on just repeating ECC every few years and use the Visits to for maps. I like Truthquest history but I am wondering if it will work to combine with MFW or SCM. My kids live hands on projects and I was going to use MFW for that, but I have seen that can history has links to hands on. Has anyone used those and do you like them? How has it been leaving now and doing your own planning? I think I’m just insecure about doing my own planning, but I feel boxed in when I use Mfw exclusively. I guess I worry that I can’t an as well as they can.