How Does WinterPromise Compare?

Okay, now we get down to it. We want you to know from the outset that our first and most important priority is for you to have a satisfactory experience with whatever curriculum you choose. Therefore, we share this information as we have shared all the other curriculum approaches. Please understand that we hope this only helps to clarify where we stand in relationship to other curriculum offerings on the market today.

What is the "Experience" Approach?

WinterPromise is so unique, we've come up with a new term to describe what learning approach we embrace. WinterPromise is more than a unit study, more than a literature program, and even more than Charlotte Mason. We are in fact all of these, and more besides. We utilize these learning methods and ideas, as well as adding in some workbooks, a flavor of the "classical" method, and integrate technology. In addition, rippling throughout the curriculum are activities based on "Multiple Intelligences" research. In essence, we've taken the best of all these approaches and left behind the downsides.

The result is a cohesive "mosaic" of learning, a multitude of "Experiences" -- many different small pieces that together form a wonderful learning opportunity and a chance to build your family culture and make some memories!

This "Experience Approach," then, relies on wonderful literature, fantastic do-able activities that support intelligences goals, repetition that is exciting (not simply repetitive!), and a "joy of learning" approach.

The "Experience Approach" allows students all different types of experiences:

• Going inside books of quality to ride the seas or blast into space!
• Delving into experiments that demonstrate a truth about the world around them.
• Trying craft or building projects that use what they've learned and reinforce it in their minds.
• Observing nature around them and recording what they see.
• Completing interactive notebooking pages that reinforce daily learning.
• Engaging in directed play that supports learning goals -- like building a pyramid tent or fighting an Israelite battle.
• Learning important dates and their significance through games played with our own timeline cards.
• Involving themselves in community or ministry service that reinforce what they've learned and give them a heart for lifelong self-sacrifice.
• Creating their own works of art and studying the works of great artists that have gone before.
• Listening to music of the period.
• Building topical, event or place maps that help history unfold and reinforce important facts in history.
• Watching documentary films that really take you "there" in history or science!
• Completing easy-to-use, well-illustrated or colorful worktexts.
• Coming up with their own innovative ideas and seeing how well they work.
• Learning Bible truths, and then putting them into practice with service ideas or prayer journaling.
• Experiencing various media online, like listening to a radio drama or meeting a Dust Bowl family.
• Building a timeline of their own, and even adding their own art, reports, and even field trip photos and memories to it!

To help you remember the core of what we are, just remember the "Experiences" form a "Mosaic" of Learning . . .

M - Mason-Inspired Joyful Learning O - Open and Go Schedules & Ideas S - Simple, Practical Homeschooling A - Active Learning & Admirable Literature I - Intelligences-Based Learning Opportunities C - Christian Instruction

MAJOR GOALS OF OUR CURRICULUM

You’ll find we integrate all the strengths of the various approaches into one seamless curriculum that is almost no prep for the parent, and which eliminates almost all the weaknesses by balancing the strengths against each other.

• We offer a learning together method that eliminates guilt trips and offers an amazing adventure for both child and parent.
• We offer package options that allow parents to school several students together, enabling some parents to reduce time and money investment.
• Comprehensive guides schedule everything and reduce paperwork to nothing if a parent needs to report to a state agency.
• Our themed programs are cross-curricularly linked with our language arts programs to give you a cohesive experience -- and we offer several levels of language arts for each themed program we offer.
• We’re generally well-received by families because we offer fairly reasonable prices that include everything needed (except some supplies for activities you choose to use) -- no surprise purchases or hidden costs.
• Perhaps most importantly, we pride ourselves on everything being practical -- parents can do this!

Lining WinterPromise Up Alongside the Other Approaches:

Okay, But How Does WinterPromise Eliminate the Weaknesses?

One More Thing to Consider...

Most curriculums do focus on one particular learning approach. This leads to an overall weakness similar to a one-legged stool. If that leg’s not working for you, you’re in some trouble. WinterPromise, as you see above, is not a one-legged stool. There are fully seven approaches or learning tools bundled together in one comprehensive program. That means if one or more of the approaches isn’t working for you, the curriculum will still function. In fact, it means you can tailor it perfectly to focus on what works for each student in your household, even if you have students of several different learning styles!

Terms You Might Come Across

Here’s some terms you might not understand. Pages refer to material included in our catalog.

Notebooking
Notebooking is the hottest new trend in homeschooling. A combination of scrapbooking, educational projects and timeline building, it gives parents a new way of reinforcing what a student has learned. You’ll find out quite a bit on this on pages 44-45 of our catalog. Basically, the student creates a notebook for which we create a spine (our “Timelines in History), individual pages (our exclusive “Make-Your-Own” pages sold as part of most of our themed packages), timeline figures (which we sell for each history package) and also suggest maps we also sell (catalog page 46), and activities we outline in our guides.

Guidebooks
These include scheduling pages, but our guides also include practical helps and teaching suggestions on other pages. Most of our guides average between 100-150 pages in length.

Charlotte Mason
A 19th-century educator who pioneered an overall educational approach, which we as a curriculum are closer to reproducing than anyone else out there -- at least that’s what we’ve been told! We give a summary of her ideals and ideas on pages 6-7 of our catalog.

Real Books
Charlotte Mason championed using “real books” not fluffy dumbed-down children’s nonsense. This is where the term originates.

Narration
Also a Charlotte Mason invention. Narration is the art of “telling back,” and is an open-ended way to review. Develops thinking skills. More on this on page 7 of the catalog.

Types of Learners
Most homeschool parents soon get in touch with what type of learner their child is: visual, auditory or kinesthetic. This is because they are so in touch with what their student does/does not absorb. They also want to seek a way to be continually more effective. Some learn about this because they are facing the challenges of working with a child with a learning difference.

Multi-Level Programs
We invented this type of program. To reach a broader age range, we schedule basic books that are read aloud by the parent for all students, then provide individual books that cater more to their age group, whether 4-6th grade or Jr/Sr high.

Family Culture
A term we use that would be understood by most homeschoolers to mean a set of shared memories, new words that click with a book that is read together or a field trip taken. In fact, a family learning together has simply more opportunity to develop a fun family culture all its own.

Hmm. I’m Definitely Interested in Learning More...
Well, it’s a given we’d love to have you for one of our families. But that’s primarily because we truly believe we have a product that can work for most homeschoolers.

We’d love to offer you a catalog, if you don’t have one. You can request one by including your name and address in an e-mail to winterpromise@gci.net. You can also click on the "Contact" link above for more contact information.

It may also be helpful to you to know that we have a vibrant forum used by hundreds of homeschoolers, and a yahoo email group run by one of our moms that wanted to do it on her own. It currently includes about 600 members. Either place is a great way to connect with other homeschooling parents using our materials.

We’d also love to talk with you, if you feel it would be helpful. We really want to serve our families, just as Christ set the pattern for us to follow. This is very important to us as a company. We guarantee we’ll do our best to treat you as part of our “family.”

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