Homeschool Curriculum Review: Building a Winning Curriculum

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I recently reviewed Building a Winning Curriculum: How to Use Vision Forum Products to Build a Winning Homeschool Curriculum  by Dorys Lee Horn at Vision Forum Ministry. This book is specifically about using Vision Forum Products to build a winning curriculum. Most of VF products are supplemental however they have developed a World History and a Christianity & Western Civilization. They also offer older books such as the Blue Back Speller .

 At first I was disappointed with this book because I thought it was going to discuss curriculum both within and outside of VF. I also found the number of blank pages that have been included in this book to be odd (though I think I understand why they are present).

Upon further review I think this book is going to be helpful for those of us who enjoy VF's Products. Basically, this book tells you what topics VF products cover. The following is a listing of the parts of the book:

Part 1: Setting the Vision for Home Education

Part 2: Building a Winning Curriculum

Part 3: Defending the Faith

Part 4: Christianity and Culture

Appendix A: Chronological & Topical Unit Studies (This is not fleshed out it just gives ideas)

Appendix B: Academic Plans for the Use of Vision Forum Resources

So for one of our family favorites, Johnathan Park,  you could correlate your scientific study to the different scientific topics covered in the Johnathon Park series. So now I can easily add VF audio, novels, movies to my various curriculum. We have a lot of VF products and this book will enable us to inject them into our curriculum as we truly appreciate VF's Culture Changing mindset & Unapologetic Christian worldview. We plan on using their guide to add the Moody films, VF CD productions to our science & history curriculum. Additionally, we will most likely use their High School History Curriculum.  Another great thing about many of the VF recommended products is that they can also be found on Netflix which really expands the availability of the VF product line to our family. 

Appendix A the Chronological & Topical Unit Studies really does a great job grouping the historical resources so I could see what I had in each era & decide if my children were old enough to beneifit from it. But like I said the Unit Studies are not fleshed out there are just groupings of books according to topics. Appendix B is very short and simply list questions to ask & answer during your studies. These questions are well thought out but there are not very many in each section.

Still even after taking some time to review it and believing it is going to be helpful to me in augmenting our current curriculum. I would not however pay the list price for this book. If you are patient VF puts everything on sale so wait for it to drop to $4-6! This book is going to live up to what it says on the back of the book :"At last, a guide to help you maximize the benefits of Vision Forum products in your home education ..."