Ok, i just thought it would be fun to share our best curr and lesson ideas for this year so far, and the worst so far. I have stuck with abeka and i am glad i did. It is full of helpful reviews and advice if i need it, but i almost gave up on it and went with something diff. So for me it was the worst and the best,lol! Any others?
As for keeping things simple, I would say this year is the tops! I have been very laxidaizicle about history and science, been putting this in and then that, kind of following a plan but not as often as I expected to do things .. I like SOTW, it is easy to do more or less of someting and still follow the Mapwork and activies plans... I liked the Creation Scienc efor last year, but this year we are patchworking it with videos as well.. We did a lot on the birth of an elephant becuase we had the baby ele from Seattle on tape, so that was cool! Ds really enjoyed that so we went with more of the same video lessons about animals, Next we do human biology refresher and then jump into SOS from next years stuff... So far MUS is awesome, geometry was way too easy for dd though, and she is doing ALL the work! So we will be redoing ALg1 this spring/summer so she can grad next year with her best friend. SOs has worked fine, she is doing okay but for the written work, the essays seem to be piling up! ANYONE ELse using SOS that has problems with getting the Essays done? or is it just me, the teacher being wishy washy about deadlines... she really does not care about grades, since we have not enforced them so reducing the grade is not working Sigh,
Worst-nothing really other than the initial dealing with everyone who doesnt agree with what I am doing Best-realizing that I dont need a boxed curriculum to make it work! That and hearing my daughter beg me to start the school year so that we could start her workbooks. She just loves school!
Worst- Weaver. Total waste of money for us. It just didn't mesh with our learning/teaching style. Best- Just simply being at home with my girls. This is our first year, and I'm amazed at how much I simply ENJOY being with my girls.
Best: Hands down, Teaching Textbooks 5th grade program for my 10 y.o! Worst: I guess it was my decision to piece together his language arts program. It worked for 3rd and even 4th, but now I'm feeling he needs something more structured. I can't really afford new resources right now, so I'll keep on keepin' on, but next year I'm definitely buying a set LA curriculum for him.
Best: getting through the first half of first year of homeschooling without complete meltdown and sending them back to school. Oh! And using PB Wiki to do lesson plans for them and integrating links into their lesson plans. It made school more interesting for them both when they could see their progress in a concrete format. A big thank you to the person that posted the link to PB Wiki! Worst: Mystery of History. I hated it and couldn't get through it.
Best: Saxon Math, my girls love it! Finally a clear winner. They really like the repetitiveness of the lessons so they are assured they will get the new methods. Our history/geography/home ec assignments that we pick once a month. Those have been so fun and enlightening. Worst: It's gotta be Math-U-See in our house. My girls loved it at first and then slowly hated it because it just doesn't go over the material enough to suit them and then always brings something back way after the fact.
DD here is doing Saxon K and really loves it too. It gets such mixed reviews, but it has been the perfect fit for us. I cannot believe how much she remembers!
We just finished our school year, but for that time.... Best: How to choose? We love The easy French, Artistic Pursuits, Trail Guide to world geography, Apologia general science and Pure & Simple computer science. Worst: The ancient Egypt unit that I put together myself. I though it should take 6-8 weeks, but it took all year! ugggh!
Best: the mix of Singapore math and Key to Series that we've finally come to. Also the progymnasmata-style writing programs we've been trying, Classical Writing and now Writing Tales. Worst: MUS. Good program but after all my lusting after it, it just isn't a good fit for me.
Great thread! BEST: Probably SOTW, as kids and I really love history ( and working on the extra projects) MUS also a winner here (think I had just as many lightbulb moments as they did!) WORST: Nothing has been too disappointing, though a social studies book I bought was little light-on. Overall, a pretty good eclectic mix of bits and bobs for the year- and now just getting new pieces together for next year .
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND!!! Many of these "worse" are great curriculum, but there is no one curriculum for EVERY family!!! My "worse", "Christian Kids Explore Biology" came highly recommend to me, but it wasn't "my" thing. I LOVE "Mystery of History", but there are several here for whom it hasn't worked. And Deena and I will NEVER forget the disastrous "Power Glide French"!!!
I'm sitting her chuckling over the responses and how they vary. Which also got me to thinking about one of the many blessings of hsing - we can tailor our needs of curriculum around the needs of our individual children. My mind went on what it would be like if all of our kiddos were in a class together (I'm talking learning styles not class size!) and that no matter what was being taught, some of our kids would flourish and others would not be able to manage. I had mentioned to my sis the other day that we had skipped a book in our LL and she said "that is the beauty of it, you can!" and she's right. The book was Treasure Island and my mind was on Jackie saying it's a wonderful read-aloud but we were in the middle of that horrid crud that was going around and neither of us could get into the book so we went on to the next. Winners here this year have been MUS and Lightning Lit. Both my dd and I are visual learners and I'm learning math I never did in the past. I love the LL because everything is laid out for me. I don't think we've had any bombs, just a few things that I put aside for another time.
The best thing this year has been Singapore Math for both my 3rd graders and my kindergartner. The 3rd graders are still working in book 2B (Singapore's levels are not "Grade-On"). The kindergartner is almost done with book 1A. I still love that we stayed with BJU Press grammar 3. And BJU Press Reading Grade 3. And BJU Press History 3. I think we did the best thing by going to the local library, writing an outline of a science course for the third grade, by copying the table of contents and chapters from the local copy of the public school's text book. (We build our science framework on this outline and then did our own thing through library and internet FOR FREE). Bible, we did NOT go with a bible course this year and I am glad. We have been sing the free stuff at calvalry. And we are looking into the new BIBLEBEE for summer of 2009 to work towards. The kids are still pretty young, so they are just being introduced to characters and morals in the stories. Spelling. The worst thing we did was waste money on a spelling course. We scrapped it and grabbed a free list, and worked with that. But I think we will be adding to that list from their school work and vocabulary words to further their skills. (We do our ow thing by writing the words 10 times on monday, writing sentences using the words in context on tuesdays, making and playing flashcards on wednesday, playing spelling city.com games suing those words for thursday and finally a spelling test on friday. So, to sum it up... I am glad we stayed mostly with boxed for the basics, and followed our interests on the others like social studies and bible and science.
I love it! Now my kids are retaining what they are learning because it goes over things all the time instead of part of the time. It's really worked for us. Do you use the disc's that you can purchase too?
Worst: No Saxon here, my kids do not like it one bit...I tried it a couple of times, but it bombed, so now it's out. Another worst surprise--All American History, Volume II. We did Vol. I last year and it went well, but when she saw the Vol. II stuff, dd said, "Oh no, we don't have to do THAT again, do we?" It was THEN that I found out she hadn't liked it much. It was okay for a year, but she couldn't handle the thought of having it for another whole year! Great! So there the brand new set sits on the shelf! Also not able to be in the Best category--R&S Math. DD likes the English okay, so thought she'd like the math. Nope. But we use it for back up once in awhile. Best: Life of Fred Math--FINALLY found something dd likes, a LOT! She liked TT okay, but loves Fred, and Fred is WAAAAY cheaper! DS15 like Fred too. He's done with Algebra 1 and is now doing Algebra 2. For dd--NOEO Chemistry II Science. For ds--The Apologia Biology book is okay, but he LOVES the dissecting kit! Go figure! They both like the Lightning Lit. pretty well too.
