It depends on your teaching style and your kids' learning styles, really. It's a solid program for sure. It's very "school-ish" though, and primarily caters to private school classrooms, so you'll find a lot of busy work and seat time built into it. It's also more expensive than a lot of other publishers (especially if you decide to use the accredited path... which isn't necessary). The DVD option is very, very boring, but if that's the style that fits your family, it's a good choice. I like Abeka a lot. I just don't use it. It doesn't fit our needs.
I used some of it for high school and really did not like it all that much. The high school health course was pretty good but the history and lit were very boring. I do know alot of folks though who use it for elementary grades and really like it.
We're using it for the first time this year for most of our subjects - Math K, 2 and 6 (re-using Saxon 5/4); K, 3, 4, and 6 of ABeka ELA, its broken into Language, Letters and Sounds, and Spelling, Vocab & Poetry; and we also got ABeka New World History and the Maps Activity Book. History does look like it could be a bit dry, but I am researching ideas for hands on projects to supplement, and we'll be doing it as a group, so that will help. I can let you know more specifics in a week (we'll be starting our semester on Monday). I am going into it very excited and thinking it'll be great for us!
I really enjoyed A Beka for the lower grades. It is a very strong program, very complete. I haven't used it for all subjects for many years now and haven't used it at all since 7th grade.
I love Abeka for the lower grades in phonics and reading. It is a traditional approach overall and the math is spiral. There is a ton of workbook pages, do use as needed. It can be dry but if you are seeking a traditional approach and a solid curriculum...it will work. I do not use it because i do not follow a traditional approach.
A beka is great for younger grades. You can always find it cheaper used. That would be the ONLY way I'd use it. If your going to start out with it, stick with it! They do have a solid foundation for learning. If I had to do it all over again I would have stuck with it from the beginning. But it got way to expensive with four kids.
My daughter used Abeka for history for 4th-6th grades while she was attending a private school. The curriculum is solid but the pace is aggressive. Now that we are homeschooling again I recently purchased Abeka Science, Order and Design for 7th grade. The curriculum looks thorough and engaging. I am not dissapointed. I will say once more that the pace of the pre-planned lesson plans looks to be aggressive. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can adjust where needed.
I would agree with what the others have said here. It is a good solid curriculum. If you do decide to use it, don't feel bogged down by all of the assignments/quizzes/tests that the plans dictate. Your child can learn using A Beka without all the "classroom" stuff.
We are using abeka for our 3rd grader and our pre-k since our oldest has been on that since prek at the private Christian school he attended. It is def. intensive and now that I am looking at the lesson plans even more so - but I plan on only going through some of the stuff - because a lot of it has you review and drill things that my son already knows and I don't want to burn him. The books are colorful and my son said he wanted to continue with them since "he knew how it works" I know in comparison to other curriculums it might be expensive but compared to a very high private school tuition it was a steal of a deal so we went with it - and the only change we did do was to go to Apologia for science since my son is interested in Space and we thought a unit study would be better. I did love how abeka teaches reading and phonics and overall we have been very happy with it in the private school - enough to want to keep it for homeschool now. Plus it seems like an easier transition. Go to their website and go to a display show so you can see the materials in person. I knew the kid's books - but I was thrilled to be able to put my hands on the teacher materials before going ahead with the purchase decision.
We have used LA, science and history. LA: Pros: It seemed like a good coverage of everything. Cons: It was extremely boring and the boys were tired of going over and over stuff. It was my first year and I did not know how to make things interesting or how to cut out stuff. Science: We only use the student books (no answer sheets, and no teachers books). Pros: We love the picture to text ratio (not too little or too much but seems just right). We love that they have a good variety of subjects to read about. History: We again use the student books only no answer sheets or teachers books. Pros: We like the picture to text ratio. Same good variety of subjects as science. Cons: They find history a little boring so that may be it but I think the texts get some what less fun as they get older.
One thing about the middle school science is that Health takes up a significant number of weeks of the school year (as much as 1/4). If you don't do the health, or do your own instead of theirs, you can take your time with the science part. If you just get the textbook, you can get Christian Liberty TM/tests for WAY cheaper than the publisher's stuff. Then, too, the CL tests usually just cover one or two chapters at a time, not an entire quarter, semester, or year at a time.
We used exclusively Abeka for our kids last year, grades K and 4th. I liked that everything was laid out for me in the TG and my K student LOVED the way the books look. It wasn't for us though. The amount of prep the lessons required (reading, quiz, worksheet, reading, then homework) for all those subjects each day was overwhelming for me. My 4th grade student loathed the spiral math approach. My K student had a lot of trouble with the reading. It was like, all these reading rules instead of just sounding out words and recognizing sounds, if that makes sense. Example: Rule-if there are more than 2 vowels, the first vowel says its name. This isn't always true, for one thing, but also she would look at the word and have to try and remember the reading rules and it was too much for her. However, we didn't use their pre-k material, so maybe that was more thorough. Also, there is a lot of memorization. Memorizing preamble, parts of the declaration of independence, presidents, trees, bugs, flowers, state birds, Canadian provinces... By the end of the year, I had abandoned the TG and was doing it my way and it worked fairly well for us. I liked the material, I guess I just didn't like the format. Lots of people do like it though and my kids certainly learned a lot last year. I don't know what grades you have but if you have any questions about K or 4th, please feel free to ask me!
Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and input! after reading all your replies, I have another question. The thing I really like about ABeka is how complete it is. I get tired of using one curriculum for phonics, another for math, another for science, etc. So that's why I am considering ABeka, I just have to order one grade and that's it. So is there something similar anyone could recommend?
Bob Jones is very similar to Abeka (style, etc.).... or do you just mean you want a boxed curriculum in general? There are many good publishers out there.
This year we are trying Lifepacs from AOP. We bought the whole grade level for both kids. I like using the same stuff for every subject, so I hope this is a better option for us than Abeka. It's workbook style, so the kids can go at their own pace and we won't have 30 books to keep track of. There are LOTS of companies that do all subjects! AOP, CLE, ACE, BJU, Abeka... and I'm sure I'm forgetting several more.
The reading and phonics for abeka builds upon itself since prek. I think that is one of their strengths actually but you have to commit to their system. My son had an extremely easy time reading and is really strong and above level at it now thanks to Abeka - but you have to understand how their system works and put the time on it.
