Cathy Duffy Reviews home > History / Geography / Cultural Studies > BiblioPlan

BiblioPlan

Publisher: BiblioPlan for Families
Review last updated: January 2012
Instant KeyPublishers InfoPricing

BiblioPlan

BiblioPlan is a unit study approach for history for grades K through 8 with extensions that allow you to include high school students. It teaches from a biblical Christian (Protestant) worldview although not all resources do so. BiblioPlan identifies itself as a classical program, and so it presents levels with reference to the grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric stages. A Comprehensive High School Supplement is available for those with older students that they would like to include in the study. While the primary focus is history, students do so much reading and writing (more as they shift to upper grade levels) as well as geography that they should be receiving credit for some work in language arts and geography. The Bible is used heavily in the first BiblioPlan, and church history receives significant attention in the other plans, so you might be covering part of your religion credit too.

The key piece of each BiblioPlan is the BiblioPlan Guide–a book with lesson plans. These lesson plans are prefaced with basic information about required and optional resources and brief instructions. The bulk of each book is a set of one-page lesson plans for 34 weeks. Lesson plans chart out which pages of which resources are to be used on a three-day per week schedule. Students might do independent reading, research, and/or writing between sessions. The schedule has rows listing optional resources for different age levels as well as assignments from alternate spine books. While it recommends particular core/spine resources like The Story of the World and the BiblioPlan Parent Companion for Ancient History, it also schedules optional spine books such as Mystery of History and Streams of Civilization. (Streams of Civilization is recommended only for older students.)

There are four BiblioPlans:

Ancient History: Creation to the Fall of Rome
Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation: the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance
Early America and the World 1600-1850
Modern America and the World 1850-2000

You might cycle through these with your children, shifting them up to higher levels in spine books and other resources the next time (or even a third time) around. I expect that the high school materials will eventually be fully developed so that you could work through BiblioPlan beginning at any level.

Teaching according to historical chronology, each plan integrates historical literature with both biblical and secular history. The last two BiblioPlans also highlight missionaries. Recommendations of fiction, both core and optional, are included indicating grade levels by categories: K-2, 3+, 5+, and 8+. The guides list a writing assignment for each week, with assignments for three different levels.

For each plan there are a few optional components that have been created by BiblioPlan:

Parent Companion: Written from a Christian worldview, the Companions are similar to some spine books you might choose. They have additional readings and background information, biographical sketches, bullet-point summaries, charts, maps, and “Fascinating Facts” that make history more interesting. Parent Companions correspond directly with the weekly plans in the BiblioPlanGuides. While these are not required, it makes sense to use them. In the Ancient History study, I think the Companion will be especially useful since it pulls together biblical and ancient history. The Parent Companion might even serve as your spine book in some situations. Printed in color

Cool History: These are packets of worksheets for each plan, with one per week. They will help you ensure that children are actually learning from what they read and hear. Choose from four levels: Littles (K-2), Middles (grades 2-7), Upper Middles (grades 6-8), and Advanced (grades 9-12). Content varies by level. All have questions based on information from the Parent Companion as well as another spine resource, so you need to purchase the Parent Companion if you want to use the Cool History. While all levels have questions on the reading, other activities vary depending upon the level. For example, younger students have coloring activities, the two lowest levels have hands-on activities, the second and third levels start children into research activities while the fourth level requires students to do significant research and essay writing. Examinations are included in the two upper levels.

Hands-on Maps: These are packets of worksheets with map work and geography activities, one per week. They are available for two levels: Middles (grades 2-7) and Advanced (grades 7-12).

Timeline: A Timeline for each BiblioPlan includes pictures of people, places, and events that are printed in full color. These are a mixture of reproductions of artwork (especially portraits), drawings, photographs, drawn figures, and flags. The Timeline itself is a wall chart that shows where figures are to be mounted.

Coloring Books: A Coloring Book for each BiblioPlan has pages with drawing of key figures or events for young students to color.

Craft Books: Craft Books for each BiblioPlan have 30 crafts and activities, all relating to the history studied each year.

All of these resources work together to make it easy for parents to present history in a far more interesting fashion than traditional textbooks. Having the supplemental resources available as e-books, makes it easy to print out whatever pages you choose to use, with copies for as many children in your family as will participate.

BiblioPlan resources are available as e-books or in printed hardcopies, with substantial savings on e-book versions. Sample pages from the various resources as well as all of the options for purchasing bundles and versions are available on the publisher’s website. You can also download free, three-week samples of Ancient History and Modern History so you can get check it out before buying.

Pricing

See publisher's website

Instant Key

  • Suitable for: K-8 with supplements for 9-12
    Need for parent/teacher instruction: moderate to high (depends upon age of students)
    Prep time needed: low to moderate
    Teacher's manual: Guides are the core
    Educational philosophy: classical unit study
    Religious perspective: Christian (Protestant)

Publisher's Info