Supplementing Rev2Rev with Notgrass for HS?

[deltagal]

I also agree that the Bible being "too childish" was a complaint I heard from my dd this year, so I will supplement her Bible with whatever my son will be doing next year with MFW.

I too am looking at Total Health, it looks like a great program. I will probably hold off another year because my dd will also be taking Spanish 2 and a photography class with FLVS.

Is everyone going to use the writing program recommended in Rev2Rev? Just curious.
!

This thread is a real blessing for me. Thank you. I felt like I was a fish out of water this past year when I tried to voice these challenges. Thank you. Now, here's the fun part. I'm thinking hard, as well about Total Health. Was thinking about using the MFW Bible piece (only) AND really want to do the writing program, but it sounds like the Smarr's has a writing component, as well. So, I've got to sort that out. IN short, I want to do as much of HOD as possible, and only sub in what's absolutely necessary.

[davisfam7]

I agree about the bible section as well. I should have mentioned that my two that are doing R2R are not doing all the bible section. They have been memorizing Hebrews. We do family Bible study and my husband leads this. We don't really use a bible study book, just commentaries. We will continue to do this through the rest of highschool. I will use the bible portion with my youngest two who will use R2R in 7th and MTMM in 8th. Thank you ladies, this has been great discussion. It has given me food for thought and some new ideas!!! I love these boards!

[Carrie]

Tiffini,

This has been a great thread full of helpful advice and wise ponderings. As we all travel this high school path together, it is wonderful that we can come together and try to find a fit for our highschoolers within HOD.

I will share that with my own high school sophomore in mind, I have found the HOD guides (that are already completed) to be richer and more thorough in their coverage of all areas than the patched together plan I have had to use with my oldest son this year. While I did have him use CTC and RTR, I was unable to have him use Rev2Rev because he had already read ALL of the history spines we used with that program (along with listening repeatedly to DIana Waring) and had read many of the titles in the Basic and Extension Pack.

I must admit that I have sorely missed the HOD guides for him and have felt that his education is not nearly as rich as the one my next son in line is currently getting. Yet, when I looked at the other available high school options out there as possibilities for my oldest son, I didn't find them to have the richness I was used to giving him through the HOD guides in the past (even if he was just testing them for me as I was writing them)! It also almost seemed like we would either be going backward skill-wise in a switch to a whole curriculum provider or that we would be missing the heart part that I really wanted to focus on in some of the other programs we pondered using. So, we continue to patch together and have my oldest son test various areas for us as we go.

I share this to say that there is much more to Rev2Rev than it may first appear! The level of classic poetry matched with the history and the primary source document discussions alone are a huge step up in critical thinking. High schoolers will actually get the most out of these areas as they are very challenging. The historical mapping is also very extensive and the rotation of oral, written narrations, matching historical paintings, drawing, audios, timeline, projects, readings, etc. covers a terrific amount of skills in a highly effective way.

As far as government goes, the ladies have shared some great options to consider for use with Rev2Rev. As far as the signers and the state go, I wouldn't hesitate to use either one with a high school student. If preferred, you could use a more difficult resource for researching the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Yet, you could still use the plans as written with your own resource. There are many out there.

Since the creative writing book is only once weekly, you could decide whether to include it or not in your yearly plan for your highschooler. I do think it has much to offer in training kiddos to write for God's glory, and this is often a neglected area of writing instruction.

For those of you who may be choosing to go the Smarr route for lit., I will share that we are returning to Smarr this upcoming year when my son is a junior. We have discovered that we prefer the ease of use of Smarr, the strong vocabulary emphasis, the great literature selections, the pacing of the readings, and the good discussion/critical thinking questions. We have had to overlook some Southern Agrarianism in odd places in the commentary within SMARR, but the author (Watson) does make you think outside the box in this area, which has resulted in good discussions here with our son.

We did much of LLATL Gold this year but found we had to supplement quite a bit in the number of full books read and in the area of writing. The poetry emphasis in LLATL Gold Brit. Lit. was great and there was a lot of it! That was its strength. We did mix in some SMARR and some Covenant Home guides too with the LLATL for our oldest in lit. this year.

If you do decide to try SMARR, you will want to preview the books to see which fit your family goals. While we are heavily leaning toward scheduling SMARR in our high school guides, we will be looking to put together our own courses from SMARR's available book units. So, this is something you could consider too. You could consider doing "most" of one of SMARR's courses, and just substituting some of SMARR's other titles in place of those that are not your favorite.

We did use SMARR's writing portion for my son's freshman year, and we thought it was very good. This year, for my son's sophomore year, we did writing through LLATL Gold and through Write with the Best Vol. II. Next year, we are considering going back to SMARR's composition or else doing a portion of Wordsmith Craftsman. These may be options you could consider as well.

For Bible, you could use Balancing the Sword or possibly one of the Quest Explorer's Guides (although not all are equally well-written). We are looking to schedule Deeper Roots in one of our high school guides, possibly the geography guide (and this is a terrific study that we did with our son last year when he was a freshman). Another option we are pondering for Bible is Starr Meade's The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study. We are considering using it over two years as an Old Testament and New Testament survey course, doing Old Testament one year and New Testament the next. Meade also does give students the option to read all of the Old and New Testament while going through the course too. Starr Meade is the author of Grandpa's Box, which we carry and deeply love as part of the Preparing Heart's guide. I would also recommend looking at doing AIG's Pilgrim's Progress study sometime before your child graduates. We will be scheduling this in our world history guide for high school, as it matches well there time period-wise. Last, you may wish to consider scheduling Understanding the Times by Summit Ministries for Biblical Worldview. We are leaning toward including something like this in our high school guides as well, probably in the final guide in the history cycle for high school.

I hope this helps a bit as you're pondering. We will eventually be listing suggestions for MTMM too, for high school students.

Blessings,
Carrie

[Tiffini]

Carrie, I truly appreciate your lengthy response. I don't know how you have time to respond personally with all you do, but it means a lot! I truly can see how meaty Rev2Rev is going to be and I'm getting so excited about using it next year. The heart connections, the skill levels, and the variety or resources used is astounding! Truly, your work is inspired and I'm so grateful to have the benefit of your expertise! I read over your responses several times trying to soak it all up. I had actually just been looking at that Starr Meade resource online shortly before reading your reponse. It looks great!

Question about SMARR for anyone who can help: Are they ever at conventions? I was hoping to see an actual sample of their guides, but they have very limited samples on their website. Are the guides only available as downloads? I would love input from others who have used SMARR.

[8arrows]

I have the Star Meade book on my wishlist. I was going to use it for Elaine for Bible next year. I will have to weigh whether I should wait and see if you put it in the high school guides. She won't get to use the last two guides, but she will use Geog. and World History.

[deltagal]

For those of you who may be choosing to go the Smarr route for lit., I will share that we are returning to Smarr this upcoming year when my son is a junior. We have discovered that we prefer the ease of use of Smarr, the strong vocabulary emphasis, the great literature selections, the pacing of the readings, and the good discussion/critical thinking questions. We have had to overlook some Southern Agrarianism in odd places in the commentary within SMARR, but the author (Watson) does make you think outside the box in this area, which has resulted in good discussions here with our son.

We did much of LLATL Gold this year but found we had to supplement quite a bit in the number of full books read and in the area of writing. The poetry emphasis in LLATL Gold Brit. Lit. was great and there was a lot of it! That was its strength. We did mix in some SMARR and some Covenant Home guides too with the LLATL for our oldest in lit. this year.

If you do decide to try SMARR, you will want to preview the books to see which fit your family goals. While we are heavily leaning toward scheduling SMARR in our high school guides, we will be looking to put together our own courses from SMARR's available book units. So, this is something you could consider too. You could consider doing "most" of one of SMARR's courses, and just substituting some of SMARR's other titles in place of those that are not your favorite.

We did use SMARR's writing portion for my son's freshman year, and we thought it was very good. This year, for my son's sophomore year, we did writing through LLATL Gold and through Write with the Best Vol. II. Next year, we are considering going back to SMARR's composition or else doing a portion of Wordsmith Craftsman. These may be options you could consider as well.

Carrie,

Thank you for all your insights. It may be too early to ask...., but I wanted to use the Smarr's themes that you perhaps, will not use in the first 2 high-school guides, so I will not duplicate and can use as much of geography and world history as possible. With that in mind, do you know at this point, which guides you might use as a "spine" from smarr's in the first 2 high-school guides? Thank you!

[blessed2five]

Carrie,

Thank you so much for your lengthy response to all of our HS questions. Your response has eased some of my fears about using Rev2Rev for HS. I am so excited to piece together my daughter's freshman year using HOD! Like others have said there is just nothing else like it out there! I'm glad I have three other daughters to share it with in the years to come.

Blessings to you and your family!

[Tiffini]

Florence, I was wondering the exact same thing! I'm doubting that Carrie has gotten that far in her planning yet, though. It's funny how I try to make sure I don't use something with my oldest that I think Carrie is going to schedule in the coming guides! And then trying to figure out if she'll be scheduling it in the first 2 HS guides which my oldest will be using - or the last 2 which she won't be using. It's a puzzle to figure out, isn't it??

[deltagal]

Tiffini,

There actually is an old post in which Carrie was thinking out loud on that subject. Let me see if I can locate it. Nothing definitive, but wheels were turning...

Look towards the end of Carrie's post:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11002&p=80000&hilit=+smarr#p80000

[Tiffini]

Very helpful link! Thanks, Florence! I don't know how I missed that discussion. Now to think some more about how to do this and not miss anything...