Why I use Biblioplan & Mystery of History !

     Originally I was going to use Biblioplan with all of my kids ranging from 2nd grade to a Senior in high school along with Mystery of History as a optional Spine. The two curriculum are different and you can use either as your spine or main curriculum for the year while using both materials. Especially since Biblioplan uses MOH in their scheduling. However, they go through the timeline very differently.

   Biblioplan www.biblioplan.net  has a four year repeating schedule like Mystery of History but you learn history in chunks. For example, when you study Ancient Egypt or Classical Greek you study that time period as a whole. So if you use the Mystery of History as an optional spine the lessons are organized to the chunks of history being studied. Biblioplan uses all of the MOH lessons as an optional spine. So my Jr. High & highschool kids who are using Biblioplan are still covering the same material the elementary students are covering just at different times.
 

   Mystery of History http://www.themysteryofhistory.info/index.shtml goes in chronological order by dates of history. So if you want to follow Mystery of History as your main curriculum for lesson plans you can still use Biblioplans Companion to study deeper on the subject since it it is a text book. You would have to use the table of contents to find what you are studying in MOH. This is a great option for Jr. high & highschool students doing MOH or any student wanting to dig in deeper using MOH.
   Another difference between Biblioplan & Mystery of History is the lessons themselves. Mystery of History is written in a conversational style while Biblioplan is written more factual information. Don't let that discourage you because the information given is very interesting to the student. They are both what Charlotte Mason would consider a living book and we are so happy to use both this school year.
    They both follow a 4 year rotating period and the same time period. I really liked both curriculum and was struggling which to use. Then the Lord answered my prayers. My Jr. high and highschool students are doing Biblioplan while my elementary are doing Mystery of History. We are all covering Ancient History which is great for field trips, movies, etc.They also both include maps & recommended literature to go with the history lessons. They are both inexpensive and can be used again if you repeat the 4 year program. Finally, they are both Christ centered with a Biblical world view which is a must in my homeschool.
  I wanted my elementary students to go through time in chronically order so they could see history in time .I liked the conversational style of MOH. The story style of learning history is great for that age. I also liked the all the notebooking pages etc. extras that you could add for MOH. MOH is appropriate for Jr. & highschool ages but the projects require research which was discouraging me from having my older students use it.
   Biblioplan is a textbook that has questions and essay assignments for the higher grades that information comes from the Biblioplan textbook called the Companion. My older students already understand history in a chronically logical way so studying history in chunks looking at it more deeply is what I was looking for them.  I also liked that the information is all there  for them in the Companion textbook. They find the information studied very interesting and come to me with some interesting facts. They get the MOH still in their scheduling to read but as I mentioned before at differant scheduled times.
   They are both great curriculum you can use from K-12th grade. If you have a smaller family it may or may not worth using both or you may want everyone using the same curriculum. I have 3 using Biblioplan & 3 using Mystery of History so it has been worth it to me and I am loving using both of these history programs!!!