I'm in the process of home schooling my son. Can anyone recommend a good curriculum program? The only one I have really found is culvert. My son is in first grade. Any help.would be greatly appreciated
Do you want a "boxed" curriculum...ie: everything altogether? There's advantages and disadvantages to both. Some people feel, especially when starting out, more security with a boxed curriculum. They're afraid they might "miss" something, and this reassures them. The disadvantage to this is that the curriculum decides what a First Grader should be, and your child has to conform to that. Others (like me!) prefer to pick and chose from different sources. This allows you to decide what works best for the kid. For example, my son was doing first grade math, second grade reading, and history with his older siblings. The disadvantage to this is giving up that security. Neither way is "better"...it just depends on what you want. Some people start with a boxed, and then go to a piece-meal approach as they get more confident; others start piece-meal and switch to a box because of time contraints, or other changes. Also, are you looking for something secular or Christian?
We just piece ours together as well. I find I can more easily tailor to their needs and strengths this way. We use Mystery of History and Apologia science with multiple kids (from age 3 to 11) and love them. It's easy to tweak it to ability level. We use Rod and Staff for our English just leveled according to ability as well. Math they do totally separate curriculums though as one is a math kid and the other is NOT! Our 9 year old uses CLE math and our 11 year old uses Teaching Textbooks. Love them both, but totally separate approaches, which is why we use them
I'm using My Father's World 1st grade curriculum. I have pieced together my curriculum in the past but tended to try to do too much, so this year I elected to get a "boxed" curriculum since I have a new baby. With MFW 1st grade you can choose the basic package including phonics, reading, and very basic science and then add your own math, etc according to your child's level or MFW recommendations. Or you can purchase the deluxe package which is the basic package plus art, music and math. MFW doesn't have all the bells and whistles of some programs, but I feel it is a solid curriculum. It is pretty reasonable as far as price too. I"m excited to try their unit study-style curriculum for grades 2-8 in a couple years. I would say MFW would be a good choice for a 1st grader who can already read three letter words and the common sight words fluently. It picks up the phonics/reading instruction from there. I feel it's strong in phonics instruction but weak in hands-on activities (if your child happens to prefer that style of learning.) Frequently I add extra reading practice and read-alouds because my kids enjoy that. But I'd encourage you to find what works for your child. I know many people like Sonlight, especially if you enjoy literature. Good luck!
Hi! I agree with these ladies, and thought I would throw out some ideas... If you want a complete curriculum.... If price is not a consideration, I would go with BJU Press as my first choice, and ABeka as my 2nd. If price is a factor, then I would go with Christian Light Education or Alpha Omega. Actually, Christian Light is a 1st choice for me for Language Arts and Math, but not for the complete curriculum...but only because I am not familiar with it. Hope this helps! (I must add these are all Christian companies!)
I am looking for a "boxed" curriculum right now just to be safe. I am probably looking for a non christian curriculum. I also would like one that is more taught with books. I have found a lot that you need to do the majority of it online, which considering my son is 6, thats rather hard to do. Any more ideas on boxed non christian curriculum would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for all the input! I've really been having a lot of struggles making this decision and curriculum is a huge factor for me.
we totally winged it.......... did all free stuff off of websites like: www.enchantedlearning.com wich you pay for but for us it was worth it. we have switched to the scholastic printables, still something to consider paying for, www.learningpage.com is totally free! there are LOTS of free sites too.
I checked the sonlight, and I really like how much it has with it. Do you know if there is anywhere that has a non christian version of this?
Moving beyond the page (google this) is a secular literaure based curriculum with worksheets - I haven't used it myself but have tried some of the sample pages with my daughter and she enjoyed them. You do have to pay for it. I have read some blogs by people who use Sonlight despite not being Christian - I think they leave out the Bible study portions/clearly Christian based books and add in their own religion - the books they choose are good literature and they are also using outside curricula for math but including it in their package so it is possibly more easy to make secular than other Christian curricula.
oakmeadowbookstore.com Now I personally have never used this curriculum but I have heard good things about it. As far as I know it is not a religious curriculum. They also offer an online course if that is someting you are interested in.
Another vote for wing it and freebies. I do buy Apologia science cause I have a serious science junkie. The free stuff just doesn't cut it with him-I'd spend way more time piecing it together than it'd be worth.
My dd is in 1st grade and this is what we are doing: Math: Saxon 2/3 Language Arts: Imagine It! SRA level 1, and Reading Eggs (a website we pay for) History: DVD's and the history channel Science: Noeo Biology (very fun!) Fine Arts: We watch youtube videos on how to make things and then we do it PE: Wii, or treadmill during the winter and jogging or playing tag and stuff when it's warmer We do other stuff as well, but those are the required subjects I have to teach. When I first started I was so nervous that we would miss something and there would be huge gaps in my kids education. I found a book called Home education Curriculum (I think it's out of print now) But you can still find it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Home-Educatio...5156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322871220&sr=8-1. It really helped me get through the first 3 years since it breaks every subject down and give you 36 weeks of lesson plans with the worksheets. I supplemented where I felt it was lacking but it helped me feel like I wasn't missing anything. Good luck with whatever you choose!
We are in the first year of homeschooling, and last year when we were researching, I wanted the security of a boxed curriculum. I felt disappointed when the sets I found seemed too dry for both my kiddos as well as for myself, so I ended up piecing things together, with great assistance from many here! I purchased the Core Knowledge books (What You 1st Grader Needs to Know) from amazon.com after checking them out from the library and finding their suggestions to be very good. I was able to compare what my oldest had done in traditional school in 1st grade and noticed how much more the Core Knowledge books had - I was so pleased! Here is what we pieced together: -MCP Plaid Phonics -Bob Books, tons of Step 1 and 2 library books, and my son's hand-me-down readers from school -Growing with Grammar (very gentle, pretty fast, nice, short reviews at the end of each day's lesson) -Singapore Math (we are changing this to Horizons I believe, due to my daughter's style of learning; we completed the first book (1 semester) of Singapore and I feel she could benefit more from a different style) -Spelling - we use various things, including spellingcity.com and word lists there as well as vocabulary words from our social studies and science lessons, and vocabulary I pull from a book we are reading -Social Studies - we use History Pockets, which are GREAT; tons of field trips to go along with the history we study; we use the DK Smithsonian Children's Encyclopedia of US History, "If You Lived" books, Liberty's Kids videos via Netflix on Demand... -Maps - Scholastics Maps workbook -Art - we learn about art at each period in US history, visit the Art Museum, attempt art in the style of the masters ("attempt" being the operative word, lol!), and we do lots of arts and crafts -PE - 1.5 hr of homeschool gymnastics once a week -Music - not enough of this for my 1st grader, but we do listen to music in our history lessons, learn songs, etc. -Handwriting - Zaner-Bloser workbook -Science - have a complete curriculum, but it is not inspiring to my 1st grader, so we are doing lapbooks and learning about volcanoes, trees, astronomy, etc. through various sources I encourage you to check out some of the options out there - after a month or so, I was SO happy I did choose each subject's curriculum a'la carte that would best fit for my children. I hope whatever you find, you are happy with it - and I hope your year goes great!
I would go with S cholastic and stuff like that, plus Stech vaughn , Zaner Bloser workbooks are great, and Discoverykids for science, they have online study stuff perfect for your age. Remember also that age matters, first grader is easily overloaded and though it will go good for a while it will get to be boring if its not exciting. I hope that made sense lol.
