Why does alveary cover more subjects?

We are using the Alveary this year, after years of using SCM.  I really like both curriculums, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.  The Alveary has many more components and SCM is more “simple” (and I mean simple in a good way! ).  I feel someone using the Alveary needs to use judgement as to what areas to cut back on.  Families using SCM can decide what extra areas to focus on in the afternoons (if they so choose).

I think SCM is a better choice for starting out.  There are two families local to me using the Alveary as well.  We all have years of CM experience and all of us are struggling with the program.  I think term 2 will continue go a bit better for us, and I don’t think any of us have regrets for signing up.  This has been a good year for us, and I’ve learned so much about CM.  Much of which I can attribute to a CM book study group, but I’ve also learned a lot from the Alveary’s resources.   With either SCM or Alveary, I think reading through CM’s homeschool series is so helpful.

I feel like the Alveary was advertised as being fairly “open and go” and I’m not finding it to be so.  I’m spending much time pre-reading, organizing special studies, and trying to adjust our weekly schedule to fit our needs.  I think pre-reading time would have increased with SCM anyway as my DC are getting older, but I feel like SCM has less prep work.  I do feel like the Alveary more closely follows the PNEU schedules and programs and is very rich.

The Alveary is a lot to take in, especially with multiple age levels.  A mom with just one student wouldn’t have such a learning curve.  I feel like SCM is so much easier to implement, especially with a large family or one just starting out.  I missed our together time with history, literature, and Bible, and made some adjustments to the Alveary to get back that atmosphere of family learning than SCM excels at.  We also switched back to Spelling Wisdom, as I find it easier to implement than Alveary’s dictation lessons.  I prefer the Alveary’s science over Aplologia for the upper grades, but SCM’s science guides for elementary ages are excellent.  Both programs recommend the same math curriculums (Richele’s guide or Rightstart).

At this point, I’ll likely continue with the Alveary, but I am not selling any of our SCM materials.  😉

Michelle,

We didn’t use the Alveary for term 3.  My kids were not enjoying many of their books.  🙁  I was sad to switch, but it just wasn’t a good fit for them.  We are currently using Biblioplan 3 days per week.  It gives me a long list of resources to use each week, and my high schooler is enjoying the Biblioplan textbook.  We still have out family reading and are covering the same topics, much like SCM’s history guides.  We are a month or so into using it, and I’m still figuring out all the components, but we’ve read some great books so far!

For ancient history, we are using Memoria Press’ classical studies.  I have my oldest two using Dorothy Mill’s Book of the Ancient Greeks, which we are loving!  They will follow it with The Iliad & The Odyssey.  My younger ones are reading D’aulaire’s Greek Myths.  We are using the MP guides, but much of it we do through discussion.

We have a family read aloud at bedtime and also read a chapter of the Bible each night.