This is my first official year homeschooling, although I did homeschool with my almost 5 year old last year, but at the last minute, put him in a church pre-k 2 days a week. Anyway, I took lots of time and thought over the last 3 months and decided for my first year to go with the Calvert Curriculum. My oldest will be doing 4th grade Scholastic (since he is weak in writing) and my youngest is doing Calvert K (even though he is on the brink of reading, I like the other stuff they do in K to make it "fun" and all the reading, so we will supplement with ETC as we have already been using it and he and I both love it. So I was just curious to hear from others who have used (and hopefully liked) Calvert! If you didn't, do you mind telling me why? Thanks! And can't wait to get to know you all!
We haven't used Calvert but it has a very solid reputation. It wouldn't work for us because they only allow you to be at different levels for math (if I remember right and then only one level higher). My oldest needs higher levels in more than one subject but not across the board.......but we do own their Little House (Laura Ingalls Wilder) Reading Guides. Lots of folks use a full curric their first year. We didn't but that was more because we started with only one quarter left in the year so I used that time to assess what we needed and opted to do each subject based on the kid and what publisher, etc I thought would work best.....and of course, tweaked along the way. I don't know if you're just using the books or if you're using the recordkeeping/teacher services too. After talking with my kids former principal (who is also a friend), we're opting not to do formal transcript services until they start high school subjects (and maybe not even then.....since MANY schools accept homeschool transcripts without a problem). Anyway, I saw your intro post. We're using a lot of what you're using now (die hard Horizons Math users here). Rhonda
Thanks for the input. No, we didn't go with the ATS teacher service. I wanted to slow down or speed up at their pace and I have heard that having the ATS is like putting your kid in school. Maybe if he needs motivation when he is older to finish on time and such, but not now. I LOVE Horizons Math. I just am getting to a point where I can't teach it. I know how to do it, I don't know how to teach it. Calvert spells it out for you and, unfortunately, for that reason and that reason alone, I switched to that with my oldest. I have really enjoyed out summer program - rich mostly in the 3 R's.
My neighbor used Calvert and loves it. I will go back in time for a minute and remeber when I 1st thought of HS'ing my son (he's now 11).... Calvert was recommended by a friend and excited I ordered it for Kindergarten. Back then there wasn't a ton of support that I could find locally and I got so overwhelmed with all the "STUFF" it scared me and we sent it back and I sent the kids to PS. My mistake - but now I personally feel more educated and I know what I am working towards with my kids.
Calvert is good. I'd say Calvert 1st is better than K. So...if you find K to be blah then don't give up and think 1st is more of the same. The first part of K spends a lot of time learning the letters & sounds they make. Second half actually reading small books. I felt there was a big leap from K to 1st so....consider that.
I am acutally supplementing Calvert K with ETC. My little one already knows his letters and their sounds and he is reading by sounding out words already...so we are kinda going to skip the letter review and keep on keeping on with the ETC...but they changed the K curriculum recently, from what I was told, and now it is geared a little more towards them having fun and also there is a lot more reading and such which I like. In due time...LOL I will let you all know. Thanks for the heads up though. We really considered 1st with where my son is academically, but with his really young age (like in PS, he couldn't even go to K this year), we decided to do K this year afterall.
We used Calvert the first year of my daughters homeschooling loved it! However I noticed a lot of things in the box I could have gotten a lot cheaper plus a lot of things we didnt even use. Now we create our own box with different things after all these years I still recommend calvert for new homeschoolers its an excellent choice Sam