My kids are in 6th grade and 4th grade. This is my first year homeschooling both of them. My son (6th grader) started last year, and this year my daughter joined him. I feel great about all our curriculum except Language Arts. I have no real currulum for that this year. Last year I tried SOS and Time4Learning with my son, and wasn't impressed with either. This year, I picked up text books from the used book store, and am using Spelling Power. I'm ok with the Spelling Power, but I'm not happy with the texts. I have no teacher's manual and I don't feel I'm teaching, and thus don't feel they are learning anything. Both curriculums seem so empty to me. I feel maybe I'm not sure what to expect from LA. I want a mix of grammar, spelling, vocab, reading and writing in our curriculum. Please, what works well for you at that age? Maybe I have my expectations wrong?? Thanks! Laura
I have used and still using First Language Lessons levels 1-4. With my oldest I have tried Rod and Staff and A.C.E. and have gone back to Rod and Staff. I will be using Rod and Staff until the end. I like it even though my oldest don't care for it.
First of all, YOU don't have to be "teaching" everything! Try to get that idea out of your head. I got to the place where I'd pretty much give my oldest one her books the beginning of the year, and she'd pretty much get it done. And she's in the Honors program at college right now, so it worked for her! (But my 16yo could NEVER work like that!!!) I also like Rod and Staff. We've used it in the past, but there's a lot of writing (which upsets my son, lol!) We took a break last year, and are doing it again this year. Easy Grammar is another good one. It's easy to use, and easy to understand.
I really like Analytical Grammar, Lighting Literature and Writing Strands for middle school ages. Those are my plans when my littles get to that age (it's what I bought for my oldest who went back to PS and didn't use them).
I love R&S, and I agree... you don't have to hold their hands through everything, especially as old as they are. They're old enough to read through the lessons and answer questions (or ask you questions if they don't understand what the text is trying to say). Your job is to help them when they don't understand a lesson or if you see that they're missing too many questions. By the way, as she said, R&S has a lot of writing in it. You don't have to do it all, though. As the teacher, YOU decide what your student is capable of and how much repetition is needed to master a concept.
Christian Light Education has a nice, complete language arts program. I really like it, but I don't use it because it wasn't a good fit for my son. I may have started out at a higher level than what was right for him. It is set up as individual units that you children work through mostly independently, and then take a test at the end.
Thank you for these great suggestions. I'm going to look through them this week. Thinking more through this, I think you are right that I'm getting too involved in teaching. I went back to Time4Learning and did a sample lesson. It's not bad, I think I didn't like it because it was totally hands off for me and thus, how do I know they are learning? So, I may give a computer curriculum another try. Anyway, I have some good suggestions to research! Thank you!
Bob Jones combines Writing with Grammar and I love their program. For reading, we just read tons of good books. Also loved BJUP spelling.
You could look at Growing with Grammar, Winning with Writing, and Soaring with Spelling & Vocabulary. It's 3 books, but would cover the grammar, writing, spelling, and vocabulary that you want. The reading would come in with reading all of their assignments in these books....and then, of course, reading good books. ETA: as of today...I think I'd scratch off SwS&V. I'm not too happy with that one right now. I think I'll swich back to All About Spelling. But, GWG and WWW I still really like and would still recommend.
Mine are younger (4th and 2nd this year, and last year was our first year HS)...I can tell you what works for *my* kiddos who are multi-sensory, and what did not work. GWG did not work for my 4th grader last year. It was okay with my 1st grader, but we have taken a different approach with a dyslexia tutor to help us this year for her, then I supplement with various workbooks left over from my own time in the schools, as well as info from the Core Knowledge books. LLATL is not enough for my 4th grader, so we use it as a supplement, with AAS, Winston Grammar, constant read-alouds, and constant independent reading (fiction and non-fiction). We cover vocabulary through all of our subjects. We will begin IEW for the 4th grader soon since he needed more than LLATL offered. I hope you find the curriculum (or combination of curricula!) that works best for your kiddos!
This is our first year for CLE and my kids are older, but I LOVE it and so do the kids. My kids have never done a day of diagramming in their lives, but the curriculum is so easy to follow that they just picked it up and went with it. They also like how they have the lessons laid out so they know exactly how much they need to complete each day.
I've used and like Easy Grammar Plus, but it's definitely grammar-only. They will definitely end up knowing the parts of speech/parts of a sentence. I really like CLE (www.clp.org). It has grammar, composition, handwriting, and spelling in every lesson. It doesn't really do creative writing, but there's allowance made for time for YOU to do creative writing. The reading program is separate. I LOVE it. I can't encourage you enough to use the LA diagnostic test! Don't be dismayed if it looks like they come out "below level" -- CLE is somewhat advanced compared to most public school curricula. I also really like R&S (www.rodandstaffbooks.com). It's in textbooks, which some kids can handle doing on their own, but others not so much and need the oral review that goes with each lesson. You don't HAVE to do all the writing! I'm doing a LOT of each lesson orally, and pick and choose which sections/exercises to have the students write in a notebook. Often, the "writing" consists of writing the word and the comma (not the whole sentence), or write only the correct word choice, or write S (for statement) or D (for declarative), C (for command) or Imp (for imperative), or Q (for question) or Int (for interrogative), or E (for exclamation or exclamatory), and the appropriate punctuation mark. Or similar short "writings". Seldom is there an entire sentence that must be written, although occasionally there is a paragraph that needs to be written or rewritten correctly. The higher up you go, of course, the more writing is likely to be needed WHEN writing is needed, but MOST of the time, it can be done orally. Every so-many lessons there's one on composition. There is no placement testing with this program, so you'll have to check out the scope and sequence (at the website I linked, which is a vendor site because R&S does not have a web presence), and abundant samples and make your best guess for levels. Spelling and handwriting will have to be done separately.
As for Language Arts Curriculum, DD has been using beestar. It offers vocabulary, ELA programs. It is curriculum-based from 1st grade to 8th grade. I like the simple presentation: text has nice simple fonts, the pictures and graphs are to the point not distracting and stories are interesting. DD supports this online way and learns quickly. Plus, DD's friends use reading eggs, I can read, etc. All in all, there are lots of great programs. Lisa
