By Melissa
(Bryant, AR)
My Father’s World Visitor Review:
This will be our second year to use My Father’s World Curriculum. We have used both KINDERGARTEN and EXPLORING COUNTRIES AND CULTURES (ECC), and this year we’re staring Creation to Greeks and First Grade curriculums.
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Why I love this curriculum:
KINDERGARTEN –
1. By the end of the year, our daughter was reading, reading, reading! – and loving it!
2.The character lesson/Bible verses/Letter of the Week/Science object are all intertwined so our daughter dove into the curriculum, building on what she was learning.
3. She was never bored. She never “hated” her classes. She’s learned just as much in phonics/reading, and SO much more about science than she would have.
4. The different hands-on science, phonics and handwriting activities make the classtime fly by (no frustration). ALL of the activities are EASY – not complicated for Moms.
5. The library books (listed in the curriculum for each week) are wonderful! I cannot stress this enough – What a wonderful time we had reading together, enjoying these good books … all year!
6. I should note here that we did use an additional math curriculum. HOWEVER, don’t skip out on the MFW math – Our daughter learned SO MUCH putting a stick into a container each day, counting by tens – and was counting money by the end of the year because of the MFW hands-on activities. I’m sure the MFW math curriculum could stand alone, but because this was our first year to try it, we used an add’l curriculum, too.
EXPLORING COUNTRIES & CULTURES (ECC) –
1. What an in-depth approach MFW has taken in teaching the science and geography. – and it was interesting and fun! As college graduates, my husband and I did not know as much about these areas as our third grade daughter already knows: GEOGRAPHY, RELIGIONS (beliefs of each of the major religions in the world); and CULTURES. The Science is amazing, too – but the indepth geography/cultures/religion study is out-of-sight – Just amazing! Do you know the capital of every major African nation? My 9 yr. old daughter does – as well as how they believe, much of the continent’s history, what the people were like and are like, the physical ecosystem of the continent – desert, etc. It’s awesome!
2. FOOD – Each week, we ate a food native to each continent. Some we loved, some we didn’t like – but it was fun, and the curriculum provides the recipes, so it wasn’t a lot of work. We just purchased a few ingredients during the weekly shopping trip – nothing extremely exotic. Very fun!
3. MOST AMAZING THING THIS YEAR – Biographies about the missionaries. They have been life-changing for us. In the ECC curriculum, the student studies one continent for several weeks, and during that time, you read – as a family – about a missionary in history that brought the message of Christ to that continent and its people… We learned so much! We’re now ordering add’l biographies from YWAM, the company that prints the bios for MFW. They’re fascinating, & powerful.
4. Library books listed in the Appendix in the curriculum are wonderful! – Don’t forget to read HEIDI when you study Germany!- You’ll love it! The abridged versions won’t do – Do the real thing. Johanna Spyri’s (spllng?) original version is one you can’t put down.
5. The last thing about ECC: Your Math & Language curriculums are separate, although MFW makes recommendations if you need it. But what we learned this year about the world we live in – both academically, and as Christians – is way beyond what we could have expected.
We’ve already purchased next year’s curriculum – and can’t wait to start it!
Enjoy your MFW journey –
Melissa B.