Showing posts with label Biblioplan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biblioplan. Show all posts
(This is an old post I had yet to post, so this is from several months ago. Hopefully, nonetheless, it will give the feel of a week with BP.)

Biblioplan has been a highlight in our homeschool this year, and I thought I would share what a week with Biblioplan looks like in our home.


Monday: We usually listen to the SOTW 2 chapters for that week (audio) while coloring the coloring page.
This week we listened to SOTW chapter 10 and 17b-- Japan and Samurais. They colored the coloring page of a Shogun and a second page of a kangaroo. Even though we skipped Australia, they love to color. (The Australia chapter was also scheduled for this week, but I thought it too much so we skipped it.) The kids were especially interested in the samurai chapter and I drew katana's on construction paper, a book of haikus, and E practiced writing a Japanese character. E picked 3 facts to narrate from the SOTW audio and I wrote them for her on her coloring page (this is what we call "lazy notebooking!" ;) C cut out his construction paper katana and went to work being a Japanese Samurai.

Wednesday: We usually read from Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, the Companion, do the Cool Histories and geography.

This week we read several sections from the companion: Mysterious Myths: Izanagi and Izanami, Fascinating Facts: Samurai Armies, Fascinating Facts: Samurai, Fascinating Facts: Bushido. Surprisingly my kids really like the Companion. I like it because it gives me the "big picture" while allowing me to give only small pieces to my children. The pictures are great and viewing it on my iPad is wonderful because we can zoom in on all the great pictures and illustrations. The Companion gives great lead in to good discussions.

Next, We reviewed the relevant questions from the Cool Histories, and did some of the geography. We used our wall map to see where we are studying. They found Japan, China, Korea, reviewed the seven continents, and the five oceans. We also skimmed the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, looking at pictures and information that interested them. We finished up our time by reading from Sam Samurai.

Friday: Friday's usually cover anything from the companion we didn't get to, review Cool History questions, and do a project. The Craft book from BP came out later so I have been using many of the SOTW Activity Guide projects. This week we reviewed the Cool History questions, but skipped the activity from the Cool Histories which was make Tanzaku's. The Craft Book selection: hold a Japanese tea ceremony we will try to get to soon. My kids were still really interested in Samurais and swords, so we made wakishazi's out of cardboard. We finished our history time with reading Sam Samurai.

Sword fighting at Grandma's!




Writing: We do narrations from our reading, and occasionally use the BP writing selections. This week's writing suggestion was "explain what is it like to be a Japanese Samurai." We didn't write about this, but we did discuss it. We came across the topics of Haiku's this week, and E wrote three Haikus and illustrated them.
It was a lot of fun.

Readers and Read Alouds:
Biblioplan allows us to have 3 days of "history," but I also have E read from a reader every day. (We alternate between readers that tie into history and other Sonlight readers). We also do a read aloud every night that often ties into our history studies. Not every read aloud ties into history, as we want to cover other great literature selections. So far we have found wonderful engaging read alouds from the time period that really enhance the learning experience.

This week I started having E read Sam Samurai as a reader, but the vocabulary proved frustrating for her so we started reading it as a read aloud. Most of the time we have a history reader and read aloud going, but this week we are finishing up The Tale of Despereaux, and E is reading a non history reader this week. The option lit for this week was Yoshis Feast. I never made it to the library this week but we will try next week!


Looking for more? Check out these other posts about Biblioplan!

A Week with Biblioplan

by on 3:00 PM
(This is an old post I had yet to post, so this is from several months ago. Hopefully, nonetheless, it will give the feel of a week with BP...
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Biblioplan, Sonlight, Tapestry of Grace, and Story of the World are all fantastic options. This really is a personal choice. However, knowing how challenging choosing history is, I thought I would share a little about why we chose BP over SL, TOG, or straight SOTW this year.

Why Biblioplan over Sonlight?
(My experience is only with Core C.) 
  • Chronology. I like how BP uses the 4 year Classical cycle. For years 3 and 4 of the cycle, I appreciate that BP offers a focus on American history but does not isolate it completely. Using BP as a base for years 3 and 4 I can still use the great SL books, but in a different order, one that takes into account the rest of the world. 
  • There was so MUCH to Sonlight. Too many nonconnecting books going on at once. Too many snippets of poems or Aesop's Fables. I love those things, but to take out a book for a paragraph was annoying. 
  • I did not feel the flow of history and was getting bogged down by all the different books each day. 
  • In Core C there was so much great literature and "other" components, I didn't feel like the "history" portion was getting as much engagement as I wanted. The books we were reading were great, but I wanted to delve into the history of what we were reading. Nothing wrong with that but it left less time for what we were "on" in history. This made things seem disjointed to me. 
  • SL uses CHOW as a spine for Core C, and I preferred Story of the World. 
  • BP has more books that fit the time frame. It has classtime reading (which I would compare to the history portion of SL), but then a reader which ties into history, and a read aloud as a family. It is just as much reading (if not more) it is just more focused on history. 
  • Especially for medieval times (what we are studying this year) there were so many read alouds set in this setting that I felt we were missing out on in order to read other read alouds scheduled. Those books are great, but I don't want to miss out on the historical books either. 
  • I needed more hands on and had added so much to it that I wasn't sure I was even doing Sonlight anymore. Then adding the components I wanted made it "more" to do. 
  • I knew I needed to streamline to have more time to do what we wanted and eliminate the unnecessary components (for us).  Sonlight is still a fantastic program, but it works better for us to add Sonlight components to Biblioplan. Sonlight books are fantastic! 
Sonlight over BP:
Sonlight does have some components you will not get in Biblioplan, and these will make a difference for some.  
  • Sonlight has comprehension questions for the literature as well as vocabulary built in. 
  • Sonlight has page numbers to read daily whereas BP just tells you what to read that week, or if it is to be spread of 2 or 3 weeks. If it is to be spread over several weeks they will say something like (read pages 1-60 this week).
  • The books are great! Historical fiction and other just wonderful books! Even using BP this year, we still are working at getting those great SL books in. 

Why Biblioplan over Tapestry of Grace?
Now, I must preface this with "I have never used Tapestry of Grace."  However, I do have year 2 and am pretty familiar with it. I chose Biblioplan over TOG for several reasons. My sister uses TOG and is thrilled with it. 
  • TOG is SO MUCH. It is wonderful, but as I sit down with the 4 huge binders for the year, it can seem overwhelming. 
  • I like the presentation of Biblioplan options better. Both programs offer many "choices" but BP has them all on one grid for each week. This works for my mind. 
  • One thing TOG has that I would like is discussion questions for the literature. However, this would make BP book specific, taking away the flexibility that I so love in being able to swap out books. 
  • TOG does not use a spine. It is just many books.While this appeals to me, I like at least having the Companion to tie things in. The Companion gives me a spine without tying me down. I can read as much or as little as we want. 
  • Price: TOG is a lot more money. Actually, the digital versions are only about $50 different. However, that is only the price of the TOG curriculum, not including maps and extras where BP has everything in that price. Because each component of BP is in a separate PDF, it makes using the e-version on an iPad or e-reader easy, but I don't think I could do TOG as purely digital-- there is just too much flipping to be done. Also, the amount of books needed for TOG makes buying the books beyond our abilities. And the library and I are not friends...so buying is necessary!
  • BP digital can be used on the iPad. This was a big reason for me to NOT use TOG this year. I hate having to break out the laptop when schooling. I love having everything easily accessible on the iPad. 
  • While both TOG and BP both have all students on the same topic, I still feel like you are almost running two different history programs for two age groups. The spines, books, discussion and everything are different. With BP all are using the Companion and read alouds. Older students read MORE of the Companion, and then each age group has their own reader. 
  • There are so many additional components of TOG. It is a fantastic choice for many. I don't need all of that right now and don't foresee needing it for some time. Biblioplan is right for us at this time. I do love the literature student pages from TOG, and I can see wanting to create something like that for BP in the near future. 
TOG over BP:
There are plenty of advantages of Tapestry of Grace that make it the right choice for many. 
Comprehension and discussion questions (I have often heard the discussions for dialectic and rhetoric are outstanding. 
There are so many components for older students and provides a full breadth of history, geography, Bible, government, and worldview. 
Literary analysis is built in.
Vocabulary is built in. 
Literature pages/student pages-- if you like worksheets, TOG does offer this component that. (BP does have worksheets and tests for middles and advanced). 

Why not JUST Story of the World?
I often see this asked at the Well Trained Mind Forums. Why use BP? Why the extra expense when Story of the World and activity book is plenty? My answer to that is, if it is plenty for you and working, you do not need Biblioplan. However, for me, it was not enough and it was not working. 

  • Being strictly chronological made it seem jumpy to me. A week in Egypt, head to China, back to Egypt, on to India, back to China, Egypt again, etc. For my younger kids, I felt a little more continuity was needed. I didn't want to abandon chronological history, but the organization of BP was what I was looking for. 
  • Story of the World was often so much information and so much breadth that I felt we were missing out on some depth. BP and specifically the Companion allows me to pick and choose what to go more in depth with, without me having to look elsewhere for the material.
  • Church history. There were a parts of SOTW that I did not agree with Biblically. Also, I want a deep Biblical worldview and understanding of Biblical and church history for my children. Biblioplan provides this Biblical history in year one, church history in year two, and missionary studies in year three and four. There are "giants of the faith" each week highlighting a person from these areas. BP's timeline also shows where Biblical and church history tie into the rest of the world. Sure you could read the Bible or Trial and Triumph along with Story of the World and infuse church history, but I appreciate the succinctness BP gives to these areas in conjunction with the rest of the world. 
  • Crafts: Story of the World tends to not have as many boy friendly crafts as BP, which tends to offer more "real" projects and less paper crafts.
  • The book lists can be challenging in Story of the World, there are so many suggestions and picking those that will be great can be a challenge. I like using the BP and SL booklists because I know they will be great! 
Straight SOTW over BP:
  • It really is plenty for many.
  • Price. 
  • It keeps it simple
  • The Activity guide offers questions and narration and summarization helps. Of course you could use this along BP but it would be an additional purchase.  
In Conclusion....
Choosing history can be so confusing, what finally helped me decide was to think of what I wanted in a history curriculum. If we could study history any way I wanted, what would a week look like? Then move backwards.  Which curriculum is closest to that end? Biblioplan serves that purpose for us. It requires the least amount of tweaking to be just what we want. 

In the end it came down to which did I want to be my "spine", my starting point. I am not locked in, I can adjust as needed. Adding Sonlight books to Biblioplan has been perfect. I love the Bibloplan scope and sequence and all the extras. The Companion ties it together in "my mind," and having that connection helps me to better teach my kids.

All of these are fantastic programs, and choosing one will be very individual to your families needs. I hope sharing how and why we chose has been helpful! Only a few years into this homeschooling journey I have already seen how needs and wants in curriculum change, and I cannot make a long term commitment to a curriculum, but I can take each year as we go and make the best decision for this year now. Next year may bring a new wishlist and maybe a change. I will continue to regularly assess our needs and meet them.


Looking for more? Check out these other posts about Biblioplan!
A Week with Biblioplan (Coming Soon)
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We are new to Biblioplan this year, and I am loving it so much! I debated history curriculum for this year like a crazy person, going so far as to buy almost 2 complete literature based history curricula. We started with another and quickly realized it was not the perfect fit for us for this year. We switched to using Biblioplan as a spine adding in some Sonlight components and I am thrilled with the results. Last year E often cried that she hated history. :( Not what a mama wants to hear! This year I hear often "I LOVE history now!" Yes! Mission accomplished!

What is Biblioplan?
 It is a literature based history curriculum based on the 4 year cycle of the Well Trained Mind. While it was originally created to go alongside Story of the World, that is now only one of many spine options available.

What are the components of Biblioplan?
Family Guide: This is the heart of the program. It is the schedule and book list. BP schedules Story of the World, Mystery of History, Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, Trial and Triumph, Veritas Press timeline cards, Classical Conversation timeline cards, and more as optional spines. This makes it easy to use no matter what spine you want to use or what components you want to include.

 Companion: This is the "text." If you are using another spine you don't have to have it, but this is where all the church history is found. This text can be a spine for your youngest and oldest, you simply read different parts for different ages. The sections are in color boxes showing what should be read to the younger BP users. You can pick and choose from the colored sections for the younger students, choosing what you find most important or interesting. The most applicable parts that age group are listed in a yellow box at the top of the Cool Histories pages.

 Cool Histories: For littles (k-2) it consists of a list of sections to read for this age group from the Companion, review questions, and a geography section. It also tells you which coloring sheet and giant of the faith (hero from church history or missionary) coordinates with that week. For middles and advanced the Cool Histories serve almost like a worksheet .

 Timeline and Maps: There are color timeline figures to go with each year, and hands on maps for different levels.

 Coloring book and Craft book: Each year has its own coloring and craft books to enhance the experience for younger students who want a more hands-on component.

Why I love BP:
  • It follows the 4 year cycle.
  • It is 3 days a week. I simply could not fit history in 5 days a week. 
  • There are so many options I can pick and choose and really make it fit without feeling like I have "destroyed" the curriculum.
  • Love the church history component. The church history/biblical worldview component feels like it flows so much better than some other history curricula. I love how integrated it is. 
  • The Companion provides the "flow of history" I thought was lacking in other programs. I can see the bigger picture even when I don't share all of it with my children.
  • It is so easy to combine ages. This was very important to me. I need to have everyone in the same place in content areas. 
  • The order. BP is chronological for the most part but it is organized in a more "unit" style approach. I appreciate this as purely chronological history can seem very disjointed and jumpy.
  • Easy to substitute literature choices. Since BP is not "book specific" it is easy to swap out another book of choice or even just something your library has. 
  • It is so flexible. Biblioplan can be as much or as little as you want, and that choice can be flexible week to week. 
  • I love the "extras". The timeline, maps, cool histories, coloring pages, and crafts really make learning history fun and comprehensive. I have pulled it together before, but having all of this ready is so much easier! 
How I have tweaked it:
OK, yes. Even though I love it and could have used it as is, I tweaked a little. We are using the Companion, Story of the World 2 on audio, coloring pages, Family Guide, and Cool Histories, (and adding the timeline and craft book next week), but I have added and changed a little.  I added Window on the World as an extra geography component. We had it from starting the year with Sonlight and really loved it. We added notebooking pages and flag stickers from Rainbow Resources and the kids love using it to make a "prayer book" of countries around the world. Also I am not using most of the BP "read alouds" since many of them are more than we need for this age. I chose to save them for the next cycle. Instead  I chose a 3+ or 5+ reader as a read aloud or supplement with Sonlight books.


Choosing history can be so confusing. What finally helped me decide was to think of what I wanted in a history curriculum. If we could study history any way I wanted (which we can!), what would a week look like? Then move backwards. Which curriculum is closest to that end? Biblioplan serves that purpose for us. It requires the least amount of tweaking to be just what we want. I love that Bibloplan is helping us to love history this year! 

If you are looking for more information check out these posts:
Why Biblioplan over Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace?
How we use it (a week with Biblioplan in our home)(Coming Soon!)

Biblioplan: A Review

by on 9:57 AM
We are new to Biblioplan this year, and I am loving it so much! I debated history curriculum for this year like a crazy person, going so fa...
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We jumped right in on Monday finishing up our projects for week 5 of Biblioplan: Sinbad spoon puppets and Ramadan Lanterns. The lanterns were a huge hit. E said they were her favorite project ever! I also heard  again "I love history this year!" Oh music to my ears after all the tears and frustration of history last year!
Anything that involved paint is usually appreciated. I learned early this year that J was not to be left out in ANYTHING, and that includes history projects! I purchased 3 cardboard wine boxes from Hobby Lobby, cut out a "window" and the kids painted them. On the inside we cut strips of red, orange, and yellow construction paper and stapled them in as the "flame."



E and C each made a set of Sinbad spoon puppets (template from Story of the World 2 Activity Guide). I love how they each did it their own way. Looking forward to them reenacting the story this Friday for review!






One major goal this year was to develop a love of history in my history hating dd, another successful week to that goal!
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It is always an amazing feeling to have actually completed everything on your planner! It is not a feeling I plan to get used to but I will enjoy it for now! We are on week 6 of math and language arts and week 4 of science and history. (I really need to do something about that!)

 This week:

 E: I am constantly amazed at the mental math E can do thanks to Math Mammoth. I am so very pleased with the progress she is making. Doing 1-1.5 pages a day seems to be keeping it manageable (ie. without tears!). My math fail this week would be that I didn't break out any Right Start games for her as it is a favorite and I try to get to it at least once a week.

 All About Spelling is another curriculum I am really happy with. Parent intensive, yes, but very worth it. E read Cora Frear for her independent reading time and really enjoyed it.

 C: There is just something about hearing your child giggle through school work, and this is exactly what we get during C's time with All About Reading. Yes it took 3 tries at phonics programs this year, but I am happy to report we are thrilled! We are doing AAR pre-level and currently doing 3 lessons a day, but the phonological awareness activities are wonderful!

We are using Super Star Speech for C's articulation issues. I have definitely noticed a big part of his issue is tongue control. We broke out the peanut butter chips this week to help him control his tongue. I think he enjoyed that exercise!


 Right Start Math is going extremely well also. I love that his issues with handwriting do not affect his math or reading. Major benefit of having these subjects independent! This week in Right Start C learned about parts and whole and laid the foundation for beginning adding and subtracting. He did great!

 Handwriting is still a little challenge. It is pretty slow going. Handwriting without Tears is a wonderful gentle program, but C is still struggling with some of the bad habits he picked up in in K4 in school. We continue plugging along, but it is definitely slow and steady wins the race!

J:
oh J, what can we say! She demands math every day and insists on playing with every toy in every bin every day. I am thinking about planning a J day when we get back from our trip next week to give this poor child some of the attention that she needs. I really do need to focus more on her. She is so independent sometimes  I get to the end of a week before I realize how neglected I think she was this week.



 This weeks highlights!

 Projects and experiments of course! So excited to say E now says she love science AND history! This is no small feat, as E hated history last year. I am so very thrilled. I am enjoying Biblioplan as well. (Well, it truly is Biblioplan with a Sonlight flavor). We had two projects this week as we never got around to it last week. We made Monk's cross necklaces from clay, and the Empress Theodora's crown (though we told Caden he was making Emporer Justinian's!)



 In science (Elemental Science) we did an earthquake simulation. What fun!


We ended the week at the Imaginarium (local children's museum) on Friday afternoon, playing on the exhibits, petting stingrays, and feeding the fish and turtles. I of course was too exhausted from a busy week to remember to take pictures!

Week 6 in Review 2012

by on 8:56 PM
It is always an amazing feeling to have actually completed everything on your planner! It is not a feeling I plan to get used to but I will ...
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