Our Curriculum

I wanted to share a little about our curriculum and how it works. 

I chose My Father’s World because I had a friend who I knew had used it and she raves about it. She, like me, wasn’t a teacher (had an education degree) so I knew if she could use it then I could too. 

My Father’s World is an integration of Charlotte Mason, Classical Education, and Biblical instruction all put together to help educate your child in a well-rounded manner. Some of my favorite things about it are:

-We have short, structured lessons that leave plenty of time for us to enjoy life. The lessons are packed with rich info so we can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. It leaves us most afternoons completely free. We can play outside, play board games, read, be creative or do chores. 😉

-We study history chronologically starting early on, giving even young students a glimpse of how things fit together in the big picture. In 1st grade, students do an overview of the Bible. They learn to read by reading the major stories from the Bible. They practice writing by creating their own Bible journal. My kids still remember the stories they read from that year. In 2nd grade, they cover American History and all 50 states. It gives them a solid foundation for understanding how our country was formed and what it was created for. In following years, they study countries and cultures around the world and then start a progressive study starting with creation and continuing through to modern times. This is broken up over 5 years. My kids have learned so much in the last two years. We’ve studied Creation to the Greek empire, then the Roman Empire to Reformation. This year we are studying early American exploration to 1850. I have even learned a ton. I know I was taught most of this in school but something about teaching it has helped me learn so much more. 

-MFW integrates so many living books into our curriculum. They use living historical fiction and non fiction books to help history come alive for the students. They encourage reading aloud daily and while that’s a bit harder with a newborn or infant in the mix, it is totally worth it. We started using Audible and Hoopla and listening to books in the car. The Bronze Bow is now one of my favorite books and it was recommended last year as part of our curriculum. 

-The Bible studies are not just fluff.  They start early on learning attributes of God, names of God, and memorize scripture with each year. We have memorized passages from Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Romans, 1 Corinthians and more. This year we are studying James verse by verse. And hopefully will memorize it as well. 🤞🏼

-Lesson plans are already made! Y’all. This might have sold me on the curriculum from the start. I know lots of curriculums have this but wow! I love that I don’t have to sit down and figure out how to divide up the history books over 36 weeks. It tells me! It tells me what to cover in Science and Bible and which days we are doing activities. If you think you can’t homeschool because the thought of lesson planning makes you nervous, just take a deep breath. Several curriculums out there give you a plan for each week. 

-Family Learning Cycle - this basically means after your oldest child finishes 2nd grade, you start the family cycle. It works like this. You do Bible, History, Science and a few other subjects together as a family. So I only teach those subjects once. Then for subjects like Math and Language Arts each student does their level appropriate work. It lightens my load having multiple students to teach. Plus we all learn from each other. It’s a win-win!

-Synergy Groups - MFW has a unique feature where they create a guide for you to meet with other families doing the same year you are and do some of the weekly activities together. We have been a part of a Synergy Group for the last two years and I have to say it’s been some of the best parts of our weeks. It gives the kids a chance to socialize (although my kids are already social), to learn from other authority figures and to do the fun messy things I don’t always want to do at home. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Let’s be honest. Sometimes those fun experiments get pushed to the side because they are too messy or time consuming. Ha ha ha! It also has given the kids a sense of community. They know other kids are studying the same lessons we are. 

I think that’s all for now. I realize if you made it to the end you finished a short novel. 😉 if you have more questions, feel free to comment with them and I’ll answer them.