If you don't know where to find curriculum to piece together, I suggest ordering Rainbow Resource's massive homeschool curriculum catalog. I am an umbrella homeschooler with OLVS and STILL found tons of resources through rainbow!!!! Here is a basic break-down of what is in the catalog: Home School Helps (books to read to inspire us and figure out home schooling) Complete Curriculum Sets (for those who find it easier to order sets than piece-by-piece) Early Learning Books (Baby and PreK) Language Arts Books Phonics Books Reading/Literature English/Writing Spelling/Vocabulary Handwriting/Typing Mathematics Science/ Nature Bible/Character History/ Geography Foreign Language Arts and Crafts Music Library Builders and much, much, much, much more! I get as excited about receiving this catalog as I do when I get my curriculum delivered. It's 1275 pages long without the index, and 3 1/2 in. thick!:shock: That's thicker than our phone book, and we live in a big city!!! The website is well, can't post it cause I haven't been here long enough. Just google Rainbow Resource, it will come up. The best part is....the catalog is FREE!!!!! You will find it invaluable, trust me.
www.rainbowresource.com I can post it, Lady Dove!!! Yes, order the catalog. I actually don't order much from them, but I do keep the catalog above my computer. That way, when I look to buy something used, I have Rainbow's discounted price to compare it to. I've actually talked the price down once or twice because I told the seller how much Rainbow was selling the new item for....
I will be new to this next year and have an adhd son who will be going from a private school (that I love but cannot afford next year ) to me homeschooling him. I have read as many reviews of curriculums that I can. I joined here and started reading all the threads I could on the posters opinions then started just looking at all the curriculum myself to see what I think my son will like. So far I have ordered a few things that we are doing now. I like explode the code...he enjoys that as well. We do probably 1 or 2 pages a day when he doesn't have much come home from his school. I have CLE for reading...I ordered 1 light unit to start with and the teachers manual and he loves it. He isn't the strongest of readers. He's kind of lazy but has had a super strong phonics base this year. So I'm going to take him thru the learn to read this summer in hopes of strengthening his reading. I use a reason for handwriting...he's got fine motor issues so we try to do 1 lesson a day. Math right now I just do some spectrum workbooks to supplement what he's doing at school already...he usually brings that home to do daily. History/ss I'm leaning towards buying the book our public school uses for SS and then incorporating maybe some sonlight or whatever I can find online. Science I'm also leaning towards the ps book I can buy online. Its kind friendly text and will be well rounded. I want to keep up with the ps in my area because eventually he will be going back. Just read as much as possible and use the resources here. I read all of the threads and bookmark many curriculum pages so I can go back and look at them/read reviews on them to see if it may be a good fit for us. Good luck!
This past school year was our very first year homeschooling. I went with what I knew of which was ACE paces and it was not a good fit. I'm glad I only ordered half a years worth which she finished in about 2 months. From there I searched the internet for reviews and Christian Light Education was one of the most liked ones so we gave it a go. It is very good as far content. no complaints there. My daughter had done abeka before and liked it so going to this got boring for her. It is just as advanced as abeka though and if this year doesn't go good we will go right back to cle. I did not buy the whole kit for abeka since I know we wouldnt use it all. we dont follow all of the curriculum guide suggestions at all. Its alot of busy work for a traditional school!
We use Abeka, but I do like to customize whenever possible. All three kids have slightly different learning styles. I use free resources from the internet whenever it fits in. Lapbooks, special videos, stories whatever it takes to make things interesting and more than just textbook learning.
Abeka here too, but for 4th I'm piecing more together and only using Abeka's language arts, handwriting and spelling. The rest? Horizon's math, Real Science for Kids and Mystery of History. I thought it was kind of funny the other day when I was talking to one homeschool mom who is piecing this and that to make a more customizable layout for her children, and then another mom came up and started saying how she was tired of piecing this and that and wants to go to an all inclusive type curriculum. The grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it?
For those who like "traditional, old-school" materials, Rod & Staff is a good choice. But there's an even older-school choice available: http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/category/Curriculum These folks do McGuffey's readers, Ray's Arithmetics, and Harvey's Grammars... REALLY old-school!
I :love: keepers of the faith. I don't use their curriculum, but I supplement my curriculum with their life skills studies....there are a few groups in my area that use KOF as an alternative to scouts, but they are exclusive to their groups.:roll:
We did all in one last year and it was OK. This year I'm piecing together, sort of. I went with Grammar, Vocab., and Writing Workbooks. (Spelling Power, for Spelling.) Real Science for Kids and Singapore Science for Science (they want more hands on activities.) Language Arts was tough. I went with Sonlight. (And hope to do Sonlight for History too.) I haven't figured out Math yet. Keegan uses Aleks. (And I'm leaning on that for Mac and Garrett too.) Keegan and Garrett are figured out. Mac is not. It is his first year and I'm really trying to figure out what is best for HIM. Plus we HS through a virtual academy and I get Learning Plans and have an attached teacher. So I have to do things "by the book".
Abeka for first grade is good for math and lang arts, I did it for 1st & 2nd. I did not use the TM's or do any of the seatwork, just the worksheets. We also did the writing and spelling. My dd was writing cursive in 1st grade better than many adults. That said, I did not like ANY of the other subjects that came with it. The readers were pretty good, although we did not follow the reading TM, we just read at her own pace. Abeka gave her such a good foundation, we were able to skip the third grade. In 4th we became eclectic and found we can do better picking and choosing a little of this and that. This year (5th grade) we found our niche. I call it classically eclectic. We use a lot of classical curriculum from various publishers. As your confidence grows, so will your curriculum collections. I love to read reviews at www.homeschoolreviews.com
