Comparing WP with Biblioplan. what are the differences and which do you like better?

[BeckyFL]

I'm getting confused! LOL!

[Michelle in TX]

I used Biblioplan this year and I'm using WP American Story 1 next year. From what I have figured out is that WP has more picture books and has crafts. I felt that Biblioplan books (w/the exception of those specific to the grade level for independent reading) was too informational and not enough story like books or books with pictures. My guys this year were 1st and 2nd and they did not like reading from the encyclopedias or atlases or pretty much any of the classroom reading time selections. I had to pare it down to just the SOTW chapters and they did not enjoy the family read alouds. That's my kids though. Yours may be different. The year before we did SOTW Ancients and we did many of the crafts and activities and they really enjoyed the book list selection from the AG. When I finally realized that my kids needed more picture books and activities/crafts for history, I decided that WP was what we needed. With SOTW they loved History and with Biblioplan they now hate history. I'm hoping that WP will get my kids to start loving history again! ;) Also, I realized that I needed more help in planning crafts and WP has done much of the work for me in that area as well. That's my 2cents!

[mommyto6]

Biblioplan is a reading schedule. WP has the reading schedule plus hands on activities for your dc to do. The one for you really depends on whether you like hands on or not. My dc are young and really love to do arts & crafts type activities. Next year we're going to use Biblioplan for our schedule and adding in the activities from WP Hideaways in History.

[Ann in IA]

The above descriptions are right on. WP is more involved. I think AS1 looks great for the younger crowd.
I love the look of WP but the more I looked at it and read reviews, I knew I'd never get to all the activities. So many people say that you have to pick and choose the activities because there are so many. I thought why pay so much if we aren't going to use it all. And I don't want to get overwhelmed with the choices and then not like the program KWIM?
Welllll....with that in mind, I figured I could pick the activity books from WP that I thought my kids would like best and match them with Biblioplan or another reading schedule I have.
I get the same results for a lot less money ;)

I finally realized my kids like to read a book/be read to all at once-not over the course of a week or 2. If they love a book we'll have it done in a day or 2. That doesn't seem to work with many schedules ;) But it works a little better with Biblioplan because we can just read more books on that topic in the same timeframe.

While WP can be used for multiple ages, I think Biblioplan is adaptable for a much broader range.

Ultimately, it depends on you and your kids-what works for one family won't for another.

[Ali in OR]

I agree with Ann.

If you have hands-on learners--WP.
If you learn by reading, not so interested in crafts--Biblioplan.

We have used Biblioplan from the beginning. It schedules SOTW, so we use the SOTW AG for coloring pages and mapwork. My dds LOVE history, but history to us isn't crafts or projects. It's the story. It's the books. It's snuggling together on the sofa reading.

The Biblioplan K-2 readers are all picture books. My girls also love the Usborne Encyclopedia and SOTW. We skip older level class time sources and an occasional family read aloud if it's too hard, but this coming year I expect we'll read most/all of them. We're also adding in most of the 3+ books now and maybe even a few 5+. So far, all reading has been me reading aloud, but my soon-to-be 8 yo will probably be assigned some independent reading this coming year.

[BizyPenguin]

I love the look of WP but the more I looked at it and read reviews, I knew I'd never get to all the activities. So many people say that you have to pick and choose the activities because there are so many. I thought why pay so much if we aren't going to use it all. And I don't want to get overwhelmed with the choices and then not like the program KWIM?
Welllll....with that in mind, I figured I could pick the activity books from WP that I thought my kids would like best and match them with Biblioplan or another reading schedule I have.
I get the same results for a lot less money ;)


:iagree:

FWIW, I came realllllllly realllllllly close to going with WP, but I had the same thoughts as Ann described above. The other thing is that Biblioplan is scheduled for only 3 days per week. I think we'll cover all of our reading for 3 days and then spend a 4th day doing mapwork, notebooking, timelines, the writing assignment or a project of my choosing once in a while. This will allow for a nice relaxed week of history. I know in the long run that we just would not get around to many of those WP projects and I can't handle the pricetag. Choosing a program that is library friendly and not so activity focused is important to me. I can also tweak Biblioplan if I have to by not reading as much as they've scheduled OR replacing or adding in other books I'm interested in covering that might not be scheduled. There's no way I want to spend a huge amount of money and then have to tweak WP. No way! I know many use WP successfully with library books, but I don't think it's the way the program was meant to be done. With BP you really only need to buy the spines and some mapping/timeline stuff. The authors state that it's up to you if you want to buy the books or get them from the library and obviously it's cheaper to use the library, which is what I plan to do. Biblioplan gets my vote!

[sandra in va]

I agree with Ann.

If you have hands-on learners--WP.
If you learn by reading, not so interested in crafts--Biblioplan.

We have used Biblioplan from the beginning. It schedules SOTW, so we use the SOTW AG for coloring pages and mapwork. My dds LOVE history, but history to us isn't crafts or projects. It's the story. It's the books. It's snuggling together on the sofa reading.





I just thought I'd throw out another opinion....to start with I haven't used Biblioplan, but I have a pretty good idea of a lit-based program since we were SL users for 3 years. We switched to WP for the last 2 years. I wanted to say that WP is not just for hands-on learners. It approaches history from many different ways - there are books/read aloud times, DVD/website suggestions, and hands-on activities. I think it is the well-roundedness of the program that has made it a good fit for us. It is not perfect, and I freely change and adjust the schedule as I need to, but it provides the perfect springboard into a fun unit study of whatever history time we are studying - with books to enjoy and activities/notebooking to cement what they are learning. I just wanted to say that you will still have "snuggle up read aloud times" with WP...one doesn't have to give that up for the option of hands-on activities.