Hi! I am really drawn to homeschooling right now, but very overwhelmed. I have a 1st grade DD, a 4 year old DS (Sept Bday so considered K3), a 22 month old DD and a baby on the way. I've been doing things with DS at home, but would really like to teach DD. She does well in school but the environment is stressful for her. She gets very nervous and anxious in large groups. This is also her first year in public school. For K3-K5 she went to a Christian private school that used the ABEKA curricula for teachers. Her K5 class had 18 students and there was another K5 class too so I was a decent sized school. She n I loved the Christian environment. We moved and put her in public school this year. I just don't have the same warm feeling about it. She loves her teacher, but I feel there isn't enough one-on-one attention when out of the classroom. She didn't feel well at lunch one day so they called me to get her. They told her to go the office when I arrived. Well, she went to the nurses office which was empty. I was walking around for 10 minutes between the lunch room, office and classroom trying to find her knowing she was probably very nervous not knowing where to go. Sorry for the long story, but that's why I think she would be more comfortable at home. I am crazy to consider switching her now instead of next year? I am overwhelmed enough with 3 kids and being pregnant (due in July) so I really need a full program that provides everything and maps it out. How would I start this late in the year? Would I get the 1st grade package and skip over areas if she tests well in them? Thanks for your help! Shannon
Hi and welcome, Shannon! It's not at all silly to consider taking her home now. I'd like to recommend Christian Light Education www.clp.org. Even if she's pretty good in reading, I'd start with the Learning to Read and just zoom through the stuff she knows well, without actually skipping much. You add in the language arts about halfway through the LTR, and continue through the end of the grade. When you finish the LTR, you start up the first reader called I Wonder, which goes along side by side with the language arts through the end of the year. The Math I would also just start at the beginning and do more than one lesson a day through the stuff she's "got" until you get to a place where she's learning new stuff. I wouldn't worry about science or social studies at all at this point; just do some read-alouds and fun stuff and watch some PBS kids' shows and other educational videos and such. OR - if you look at the samples and you think she's already learned more than the beginning first grade stuff, you could give her the first grade placement test that's free at the website and if she passes it (the TM is free at the website too), you could just start up at second grade. OR - you could get the TMs only, and give her the Alternate Unit Tests (reproducible pages in the back of the TM), and get EXACTLY the units that teach stuff she's not quite mastered yet. Both the math and the LA are built on an incremental spiral, which means a little bit of new lesson, followed by mixed practice of previous skills, every day. It doesn't take very long before the student - even a first grader - will start saying, "I can do this!" and becoming fairly independent. I'd also recommend the Preschool activity books for ages 3/4 and the ABC Readiness Series (the titles of the books are in alphabetical order, and are now up through letter I) for your 4yo. These cover preschool and kindergarten skills. You just go through them consecutively, except for the Bible Stories to Read and the accompanying Bible Stories to Color, which you can do concurrently with the other books.
Another thing with your younger one. I found that my second (and eventually third!) wanted to do whatever the older one(s) were doing. So I would often make a second copy, and keep it nearby. If the younger one wanted to "do school, too!", I would pull it out. If she wanted to play, that was fine, too. Sometimes "doing school" meant scribbling all over the paper. But, when my oldest was four, I was teaching her and her bf their letters. One day a week, we'd watch a video, do an activity, and do a phonics page. My 2yo wanted to join in. She would start scribbling on the phonics page, but eventually she realized on her own that the older girls only colored SOME of the pictures. So she would wait to see what was "right", and only scribble on top of those!
Thanks! I think I will order a few things from CLP to look at and try with DD. If I can get organized and make this work, I really think she will love it!
Here is a vote for My Father's World curriculum! We've done K and are currently on 1st. I like that it is both flexible and structured enough to suit my "needs variety" personality and keep us in line with what we "should" be doing!
I personally like Sonlight since it lays it all out for you. I used their Core B for 1st grade (we did their LA and Science too). The nice thing is you can stretch stuff out and do it for a year and 1/2 or just cut stuff out. For Math I like Horizons for early elementary.
I, too, was going to recommend Christian Light if you like workbooks. But My Father's World is more of a unit study approach, using lots of books and such. Sonlight is too, but from what I see Sonlight is a bit more expensive. No matter what you start with, though, know that you can change what doesn't work. Welcome to homeschooling!
I was going to recommend Christian Light if you like workbooks. workbook in the sense it will make a more activities like drawing,colouring and many more
Love Christian Light! As a matter of fact I should be there placing an order rather than surfing here.:lol: Couple of pros: Super easy to follow Teacher's Guide (if you have a quick learner who'll mostly just use if for checking their work but there are good teaching suggestions to read if you need to "teach" more - my son 8 mostly just reads the lesson an completes it he works very independently) Cost Effective - The worst part will be your first month because you have to buy your teacher's manuals - I personally buy my Light Units Monthly because it is much better for me to have thing on a monthly basis rather than a big buy in the summer. I even plan on splitting up next year's teaching manuals and first light units and buying half in June and half July (my summer) so I don't have two months of spending nothing then a huge month just before we start - I'm not sure I said that well DS has used the 300 level things this year and will be using it again next year DD 4 has completed the very first A-D series preschool stuff and is now working on A-I stuff I really like these work books lots of pre writing stuff and lots of cut and glue There is a LOT of coloring so I sometimes skip a little of that Planning to start Learning To Read series next year As for ABEKA you mentioned I like I think a lot of first timers thought it was the end all be all of curriculums - well for me it did not work and I have hundreds of dollars of it waiting for the used curriculum sale. It was super repetitive with lots of seat work and I found the teacher's manuals overwhelming and found the whole program super teacher intensive. I had a 3 and 1 year old around at the time to and just couldn't get into it. I know a lot folks love it but it was not for us. Remember too that is it a teacher's manual and a big student work book so you have to buy the whole year at one time. CL uses 10 small workbooks (Light Units) to get through a year so if you decide you don't like it you aren't out much but the Teacher's Guides. Hope that helps some. Good Luck!
Definitely agree with ValleyFam on the CLE and Abeka side. Especially for our son, he just wasn't getting it with Abeka (with Reading). As soon as we started in on CLE LTR lights started turning on and it was like day and night for us. After that reading was soooooooooo much better.
