Travel with Kids

This year we are using My Father's World: Exploring Countries and Cultures. As we travel through the world, we have enjoyed watching travel videos, well I have anyway. While the kids have found them interesting, there is only one series they found entertaining. Only one series they actually begged me to watch. It is call Travel with Kids.

This video series is great because it is filmed so the whole family will enjoy the video. Also, the kid friendly aspect avoids some of the racy sections of some other travel videos made for adults like Rick Steves or Globe Tracker. Besides learning how to travel with kids, you also learn historical facts and get to see interesting places like Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower. The DVD had some great activities to do at home, such as crafts, recipes, websites and books lists. This makes it a great resource if you are teaching about a country. The book list would be very helpful filling up our book basket (MFW).

After hearing from a friend that she visited her in-laws in Germany, I was surprised to find that she only paid $400 a ticket for the flight. That made me think European travel could be within our gasp. Not sure yet if that means we have to go when no ones else wants to travel. The European videos of this series shows me it is possible and fun to travel in far away places with kids.

We were able to get these videos through out library and from Netflix. Amazon sells them as well. They have a few videos about destinations with in the US.

The Wheel: My Father's World

The "wheel" idea is one of the big reasons we switched from Sonlight to My Father's World. Sonlight has cores that do allow for combining teaching, but it is only for few years for age span. Since I currently have a 8, 6, and 3 year old, I would end up doing 2 cores, which is enough to make my head spin. If we are blessed with more children, you could make that 3 cores. Then you add the possibility that the 3rd will get a hoge poge education. Sonlight is a great curriculum, but I felt I needed something simpler for our family structure while retaining the philosophies and scholastic standards.

The were a few other reasons I switched curriculum, but this post is about the wheel. So let me explain it. Their catalog and website also has a great description of it as well. Here are some quotes for the website:

Our unique and innovative multi-age curriculum for 2nd-8th grade begins with a one-year foundation in geography followed by four years of history presented chronologically. Beginning with Creation, world history is integrated with Biblical history.

The curriculum is multi-age. Two or more children in 2nd - 8th grade may be taught together, using the same program. Each child will enjoy activities appropriate to his age, while studying the same curriculum as his siblings. This helps unify the family while easing the parent's teaching schedule.

Year One	Geography: Exploring Countries and Cultures
Year Two	History: Creation to the Greeks
Year Three	History: Rome to the Reformation
Year Four	U.S. /World History: Exploration to 1850
Year Five	U.S./World History: 1850 to Modern Times

Each of our programs for grades 2-8 integrates Bible, literature, history/geography, science, music appreciation, art, and character development. Add grade level math and language arts for a complete curriculum program.

Your younger children enter the wheel when they each reach 2nd grade. For example, my 2nd child will enter the wheel at year 2 and continue the wheel until 8th grade, completing the wheel and repeating year 1 and 2 on an advanced level. This way I can make sure each child gets every section of the wheel. It is a simple way to make sure the younger ones do not miss a certain historical period or science topic.

Here is their explanation for the wheel:

How Our Multi-Age Family Cycle Works

1. If your oldest is in 4th-8th grade, begin the Family Cycle at Year One with all 2nd-8th graders. (K-1st graders may participate in some of the easier activities for a low-key exposure to topics.) If your oldest is in 2nd or 3rd grade, use Adventures in My Father’s World and begin the five-year cycle the next year.
2. Continue through the five-year cycle. When younger children reach 2nd grade, they join their older siblings in the family cycle using the same year the other children are studying. This unifies the family and assures that Mom is only teaching one of the five-year cycle programs each year. (Younger children can easily join mid-cycle because they have already been exposed to the earlier years as a part of the family.)
3. When you finish Year Five, go back to Year One and cycle through Years One-Five with all of your children who have not reached 9th grade. A 7th or 8th grader will repeat, on a more advanced level, the years he was taught in 2nd and 3rd grade.
4. When a child reaches 9th grade, he is ready for parent-guided independent work in our high school program.

What I love about the wheel:

• Simple way to keep track and make sure ALL the children do not miss a period of history or science topic
• We study subjects as a family. Great for family vacations field trips.
• Works for any size family, no matter the ages between children
• Will save my sanity by teaching subjects together, except for language arts and math.
  

There are so many great curriculums out there, this one looks like it will answer our issues and goals. I'll let you know next spring how it went. We have really liked using Adventures in My Father's World and My Father's World from A to Z

Giving Goats

For the MFW goat lessons we read several books, but two go nicely together. They are:
Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier
Give a Goat by Jan West Schrock

Beatrice's Goat brought tears to my eyes. It is a story of how out of out abundant blessings, we can give a gift that will have a great change in the life of someone less fortunate. Give a Goat is about a classroom whose teacher read them Beatrice's Goat. The book inspired the class to raise money to buy a goat for someone like Beatrice.

I wish I would have thought of this early, but it would be a wonderful experience to read these books as a family and to set a goal to buy a goat for another family. We could set up a little glass jar with a goat picture on it to save money for the goat.

Give a Goat mentions how to go about the process, but I think I would prefer to give the goat through a Christian organization, like World Vision. As of yet, I have not looked into World Vision very much. I am not sure how much of the money goes to directly help other people. However, I assume that when you donate to buy a goat, that someone actually gets a goat, though I want to make sure that is absolutely true.

Does anyone know of any other Christian organizations that would be good for this? Or know more about World Vision?