16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum

Today I’m sharing 16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum cycles 3-8. I have 6 tips for anyone using My Father’s World, 5 tips for using it with a bigger family (which we have), PLUS 5 tips for using My Father’s World for when you have kids with ADHD or other special needs (also in our personal mix).

I’ve been using My Father’s World since 2017 in grades 3-8 for science, art, history, bible, and some language arts. You can read my full review of MFW Here. Also I have video reviews and unboxings, plus a raw and real video of one of our day’s using MFW. I’ll link to these below and at the end of this post, also I’ll be doing a video soon of 16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum, so be on the lookout for that.

Also, if you have been using MFW and you have additional tips and suggestions for me and others that I’ve missed would you please leave them in the comments below so we can bless each other in this journey?

Why 16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum ?

I wrote 16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum because I think there comes a point with almost any curriculum where you face some challenges, or perhaps even once the new wears off and the curriculum honeymoon phase comes to an end, and you look around and wonder if this really is the best curriculum for your family. You start second guessing and wonder if there’s something better out there.

Sometimes a curriculum really isn’t a good fit. I’ve experienced this. For our first five years we struggled finding what would be best for our family. Finding the right curriculum for your family’s unique needs is critical to the success of your homeschool journey.

Sometimes though, the problem is that you’re in a hard season, subject, age, and the key is that you’ve just got to stick it through.

I wrote this post because we’ve been using the curriculum for years now and we’ve definitely seen hard seasons and parts with it, and I’ve seen where some people actually dump MFW and switch curriculums once they face the same issues we have faced.

Unfortunately what a lot of people don’t realize when they bail on My Father’s World is that they are basically trading one set of problems for a different set of problems-and often times a much bigger and more expensive set! Since I came to My Father’s World after experiencing a few other curriculums I have experienced both sides and sometimes want to take mama’s that are leaving MFW by the hand and tell them this because so many don’t know.

A Note About Jumping Curriculum

Experience has shown me that jumping curriculum is something to be weighed seriously. Every curriculum is going to have harder weeks, months and even years sometimes ( for example grade 5 for some is a common hard year for home and public school students regardless of curriculum used).

One of the big problems that happens when one jumps curriculums, however, is that it can create more gaps in an education then there would have been. This is because curriculums don’t align with each other; some teach a concept in 5th grade while others teach it in 3th grade. Although most things are repeated there are times where if one has jumped around too much it can make it very difficult on a student.

Another thing a lot of people don’t realize or that is easily forgotten is that that getting used to a new curriculum takes time out of the school year. Usually curriculums have an introductory section for the parent to read and some of these can be quite long (MFW is very easy compared to many I’ve seen and experienced).

My point is, if you are using My Father’s World and have reached a hard point and are considering switching (which might in fact be what is truly best for your family) read this post first and perhaps consider trying these tips to see if they make a difference!

Or if you are finding this information at the beginning of your My Father’s World journey hopefully this will help you to be armed and ready with solutions if you hit a harder season!

Many of the tips below are things we’ve discovered but a couple come directly from MFW staff (they are always so wonderful).

Let’s jump in!

16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum

Tips for Anyone Using the Curriculum

1. Sometimes some people-or some seasons in life-find the book basket suggestions too heavy. When this happens in our family we found that what we love doing is using My Father’s World in tandem with YouTube videos instead of trying to locate and use all the books suggested for the book basket. We enjoy looking up videos on whatever topic we happen to be studying and watching the videos during lunchtime, and the videos have a way of re-engaging kids who are tired of reading and engaging the elementary kids who weren’t even listening during reading time but are all over a documentary or YT video.
2. If your children are audio learners, consider getting audio books for them instead of regular books. I really wish I had discovered this sooner! My Father’s World doesn’t sell audio books (I wish they did), so you could just get their Teachers Manual and the Student Sheets and the books that are not on audio yet, but then look for as many of the books you can find in audio version.
3. If you’re on a super tight budget like most big family’s you can find the books in the packages second hand. The only thing is sometimes you’ll find older versions that haven’t been updated. This is usually pretty easy to get around in our experience.
4. Don’t skip the beginning portion of the book with teaching suggestions and information on how to use the curriculum. It’s shorter than most curriculum’s getting started sections and it’s super helpful. I like to read through it a couple times before starting the school year, and then I like to refresh myself partway through the school year. I see a lot of new homeschool mama’s get overwhelmed the first week of MFW because they didn’t know there was a section in the beginning of the guide they need to get familiar with before teaching so I just really want to emphasize to start reading it BEFORE your start week.
5. Join the FB groups for support, and don’t ever hesitate to call MFW if you are ever struggling in an area. Both of these will be amazing and helpful.
6. Remember that with any curriculum it’s supposed to be used as a tool, not a master and you can adapt it to your needs. I forget this a lot!

Tips For Using My Father’s World Curriculum With A Larger Family

My Father’s World was designed to teach multiple children in various grades all at the same time.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not 100% sure it was designed for parents of really big families spanning teens to tots, and teaching kids in elementary, middle, and high school with kids with adhd and special needs too. Here’s the thing; I’m not sure anything exists for parents like this, lol! I mean, let’s face it, families like that are kind of an anomaly!

For us bigger families than then norm with kids spanning such wide age ranges I do think MFW could spend a little more time, maybe even work with a few of their big family consumers and fine tune some of the book recommendations in the daily schedules.

For example it would be helpful if they would suggest only certain parts of some of the books for certain grade’s. For instance, our 8th grade student could easily do all of the daily workload, but the 5th grade child really struggled with ALL the 3-8th grade scheduled readings though. It was so heavy and rich in learning for him that retention declined a bit. Having never done that level before I didn’t know which books would be best for him to focus on.

I know of some people who dump My Father’s World for this very reason, but I’ve been down that road and it really is the best curriculum I’ve found for teaching so many kids, so I believe in trying to endure through-which is what I did and I found some solutions for making it work with a bigger family than the norm.

1. Call My Father’s World. I’ve had to do this a couple times when I came to a part that wasn’t working so well and they had solutions to make it keep working. Last school year when I called MFW and told them my situation they helped me tremendously! I wished I had called them at the beginning of the school year instead of 3/4 of the way through!
2. If you do have a really large family call them at the beginning of the school year, explain your situations and ask them for specific recommendations and tips. They are likely to put you on the phone with one of the founders, David, and he had such helpful advice for our family’s unique needs.
3. Another suggestion I have is to take a little extra time at the beginning of the school day or week and glance over what’s coming up. At that point take a pencil (you could even use colored pencils) and trim it up a bit for the kids you know won’t be able to do everything and remember this; you don’t have to do it all! You could underline which books for each child with the color you chose for them. PLEASE REMEMBER-They WILL be going through MUCH of this info again in high school (only on a deeper level). Right now you are just planting as many seeds as you can. PLEASE Note that the more you can teach in grades 3-8 the easier high school will probably be for your kids, and they will be more likely to get better grades which can improve their scholarship chances and college choices if that is where they are headed.
4. If you have kids on two or three levels (as in high, middle and elementary) consider year round homeschooling. It may sound awful to some of you, but it can actually make the whole year more pleasant and productive if you plan it right. Personally we are returning to year round homeschooling so we can spread the weekly workload over two weeks sometimes instead of cramming it all in one, and so I can focus more heavily on some children some weeks without the others getting behind-ALSO so we can get more rest breaks through out the year to recharge us.
5. MFW weekly schedules work down, vertically in columns, but did you know you could work across too? We recently discovered it works well for us to work across and save the entire Bible and history row portions to study together as a family (with my husband) together on weekends instead of doing history through the weeks, and we will be doing all the science on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday instead of through the week as the schedule suggests. One of the teacher suggestions in the introductions suggest having dad teach Bible but we like having him around for history too.

Remember, if you feel like retention is declining it’s okay to lighten the load in the daily schedule plan. WATCH THIS VIDEO I MADE ON THIS TOPIC.

Tips For Using My Father’s World Curriculum For Parent’s or Kids with ADHD

I have ADHD and I have two boys with it, and MFW works better than anything else we’ve ever tried for them and me as the teacher. Something you’ll want to know if you have children with learning disorders though is that MFW is challenging in that it is packed with rich books and education.

Both my ADHD boys don’t enjoy reading-which is part of why we use MFW which pulls heavily from Charlotte Mason/living book philosophies. Even though the books used by MFW are far more engaging the ADHD brains still wander sometimes! Here are some things we found to help.

1. Last year we found that putting some of the reading onto evening reading time and weekend reading time worked better for us. We are doing this again this year and it’s working even better since everyone is completely used to it. We all actually enjoy coming together as a family in the evening, cozying up and reading-it’s provided some of the best, most fun, and super engaging and memorable discussions!
2. As mentioned lightening the load is an option-I would just be sure to call MFW and ask them which books are the MOST important for the specific child’s age/grade.
3. Again, audio books. Get audio books so they can read along with the audio or just listen to the audio.
4. My Father’s World Staff had some great suggestions that worked for us, I talked to a sweet staff member there that had a child with ADHD (who used MFW) and she said at the beginning of the day show the child where they need to read to but make sure they know they don’t have to do it all at once. ADHD kids need to change the scenery sometimes to reset and calm their brains so let them read to a certain point and then have them go do something else. Let them know they can come back and finish it later (some kids you’ll need to remind them). She also suggested covering up part of the page with a piece of paper because too much on a page overwhelms the ADHD brain at a glance.
5. Another suggestion she had is to read to them yourself, and allow them to do some kind of hand work like knitting, crocheting or cross stitch or something.

I hope 16 Helpful Tips For When Using My Father’s World Curriculum has been helpful, and don’t forget to check out COMPLETE My Father’s World Homeschool Curriculum Review here, also look below. I have a YouTube playlist for people using My Father’s World Curriculum! Also, if you have more tips for using the curriculum please leave them in the comments section below!

Feel free to CONTACT ME if you have questions you think I may be able to help with and if you have suggestions for using MFW please drop them in the comments below for myself and others!

Hey! Are you planning your next homeschool year? Be sure to read my post 25 Tips For How To Plan A Homeschool Year. And are you going to be schooling with a new baby or toddler? Be sure to read my post, How To Homeschool With A Baby.

Browse all my HOMESCHOOLING POSTS HERE.

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• My Fathers World Homeschool Curriculum Review & Video Walkthrough
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• Our Inattentive ADHD Story Plus A FREE Printable Focus Cheat Sheet

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