MFW

MFW- Short for My Father's World, the curriculum we have used starting our 3rd year now.

A little bit about the author of MFW:
"Marie Hazell is a speech and language specialist with a master's degree and teaching credentials. After completing her degree, she taught in a special language kindergarten where her interest in teaching children and adapting to their various learning styles developed. She then taught kindergarten and first grade in a Christian school, which challenged her to develop a program that focused on both strong and weak learners, often at different levels. With her background in the educational system, and then becoming the mother of six children, she realized the importance of the family in the educational process. Combining her experience and knowledge, she developed a Bible-based program for both homeschools and classrooms. Writing from her deep desire to further God's kingdom, she continues to develop curriculum that is a unique combination of her own observations, Charlotte Mason's ideas, and classical education, providing an international focus and Biblical worldview."

We started with MFW when Daniel was in 1st grade. Last year we did Adventures in MFW which is a "one-year program designed for second or third graders who are the oldest in the family." One of the things we studied was American History.

This year we are doing ECC (Exploring Countries and Cultures) which is the starting point of a 5-year cycle that Leah will join in when she is in second grade. After this year of geography we will start a 4-year study of world history beginning at creation.

Monday we will start week-3. The last two weeks we have learned about maps and map making, the 7-continents, the 5- oceans, and much more. This week we will start learning about the countries in North America.

This is my teacher's manual. Everything is so well planned. I just go down the column for each days work and we complete it. Things have been going well so far.

We start our day with a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and then do our first subject, the Bible. Daniel reads the day's assigned verses from his Bible. I read from another book that relates to what he just read, usually Window on the World. So far we have been studying the different religions of the world and how God loves all people and wants everyone to be saved. The children have learned John 3:16 as their memory verse for the last 2 weeks.

Kingdom Tales is an allegory of the Bible that we have been reading a chapter from each night this past week. We have found it very interesting and Daniel has been catching the scriptural concepts taught in it.

The first week we read God Speaks Numanggang, a book written by the MFW author's husband, David Hazel about a family who have been missionaries the past 25 years in Papua New Guinea. They have been translating the Bible into Numanggang.

Daniel is working on his handwriting. He has been practicing printing the alphabet. He will be learning cursive this year using a set of books I purchased with my ECC package. I'm not sure he is ready for that but we will try it and see.

Daniel is working on his spelling. He wasn't getting his different vowel sounds very well. I had read about All About Spelling on the MFW forum. MFW doesn't sell this program but I thought it sounded like it could help Daniel. We started in Level 1 this summer. He is almost finished with that level. Before each lesson we review the phonograms that he doesn't remember and the spelling rules he has learned so far. After I teach him a new lesson and demonstrate on the board he will come up and practice spelling words using the magnetic tiles. Then I will dictate more spelling words or phrases and he will spell them on paper. He is really catching on and I have noticed he is remembering the rules while he writes.

He learned about doubling the consonants f, l, and s when they follow a short vowel in a one-syllable word.

This is my manual and our different cards we go through.

Many language arts skills are integrated into history/science/Bible activities. We add PLL as a supplement to "assure a well-rounded, complete language arts program." PLL is uses a "Charlotte Mason-style approach with short, easy-to-teach lessons".

MFW recommends Singapore Math for Grades 2-6. Starting grade 7 we will use Saxon Math with Jacobs Geometry. Singapore Math has a "strong mental math component (unlike many U.S. programs) that is one of its primary strengths. Logical, unique strategies are taught that help students truly understand mathematical concepts. Students are then able to solve problems mentally without always relying on paper and pencil."

We plan to have Daniel work through 3A and 3B this grade.

Here are some of our World Geography books. We supplement with book basket which is a term MFW uses for the time our children spend looking through or reading fun and educational books we get each week from the library that corresponds to what we are studying.

Here are some of our science books we are using this year. As we study each country in geography we will also study the environment, plants and animals, climate and etc. of that country. Again, we will supplement with many books from the library.

I didn't take pictures of the art curriculum, music, and read aloud books we will be using.

When I first received my box from MFW and started looking through all the books I felt a little overwhelmed. After I read through the teacher's manual a bit I realized we won't use all these books everyday. I should have known that as that was how it was last year but I panicked for just a moment.

It looks like an exciting year in My Father's World. One of the neat things my children and I will learn is to pray for each people group as we study about them. We pray that they will have a Bible in their language and be able to learn about God's plan for salvation.