Ok so my sister is planning to go back to homeschooling next fall and her oldest will be going into 5th grade. He's only going to be 9 but is doing very well in 4th grade this year and is at par or above his classmates. She's a type of teacher mom who needs a plan, something that tells her what he should be learning when. She's thinking maybe an online or computer based curriculum. I've already pointed her towards Teaching Textbooks for math, I think he would do well with that. I think she's wanting something that is as all inclusive as possible. I'm sharing resources with her for her youngest children. Her major concern at this point is keeping her oldest on track. She doesn't want him to get behind and miss something and not be ready for high school when he needs to be. I try to reassure her that he'll be fine no matter what approach she takes but she's a little more of the homeschooling is school at home type of homeschooler. So help me out with some curriculum suggestions and why you would suggest them. Please. Thank you.
We have used both computer based (Switched-on-Schoolhouse) as well as mapped out workbooks (ACE and CLE). My kids by far prefer the workbooks for a few reasons. 1) Computer based requires you to sit in front of a computer screen for hours. My son has Tourette's, so maybe he is more sensitive than most, but it was hard on his eyes. 2) The computer based grading is bothersome at times. If the student doesn't capitalize correctly it doesn't recognize the answer as correct. While that might be beneficial in language arts, it is very frustrating when it is science, social studies, etc. 3) Waiting on your sibling to finish so you can begin if the family has only one computer can make for a very long school day. 4) Studying for a test is much more difficult on the computer since you have to load the correct pages to find the information you need. Although the curriculum program gives the student the ability to highlight the text for easy studying later, the sheer volume of pages to hunt through is a tedious task. My kids both prefer to flip real pages. As the teacher, I found myself spending a great deal of time going through and rechecking things the computer graded inaccurately. I was offering my kids more grace with typos than the program allowed. Others absolutely love the computer-based curriculum and I hope you get some good responses as well so you can weigh all aspects to see what the right fit is for that family.
We like SOS for our older two. I have one in 5th and one in 8th. They do Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies on SOS. We do Horizon's Math for the 5th grader as that's what we used from the beginning. My older started on Teaching Textbooks this year and we LOVE it! I'm thinking about making the switch for my middle child next year. It's great at explaining the concepts and I love the self grading. Plus I can use it for my younger kids as they move up. We really only use the Teaching Textbook DVD's. The books are sitting new and pretty on the shelf. It does help that each kid has his/her own computer. We decided they were good purchases. Our youngest is only 7 so her's is an ancient desktop, but she will get a refurbished laptop for 3rd grade next year. That's when she will start SOS.
I do not recommend SOS for all subjects. It is very tedious. I would be a solution of there is a subject or two that needed to be more self directed, or needed the aid of teaching input other than parent. To put a child in front of SOS all day would be a last resort for me.
My personal preferences for that age/grade are CLE and R&S. CLE for Reading, LA, and Math, R&S for science and history. The CLE can be done very independently, because it's laid out in daily lessons with regularly-spaced quizzes and tests. Either the student can check his own daily work, or the teacher/parent can, but teacher/parent should check the quizzes and tests, and can be as involved in the daily work as desired. The reading has the stories in textbooks, with the lessons in workbooks. One selection per unit (5 units) is from the Bible, and each selection is paired with a Bible verse for memorization (will be on the quizzes/tests). The story and verse share a theme, and an application of the verse is explained in the reading lesson. PLEASE DO use the diagnostic test before ordering! It's free for printing out at www.clp.org. There is no reading test per se, but there is a math and LA one. The TM/AK for the test need not be printed out but can be used from the webpage. The science and history are simply presented, with regular chapter and unit tests, and map work in history. These are textbooks which are well made and hold their resale value well. I like having some work in workbooks and some in textbooks with notebooks, so that it's not just one approach all day long -- for some students, that gets tedious. The science has several lesson applications per lesson that can be done, simply discussed, or ignored, as desired. The history is rather basic, but can be easily supplemented with other books or activities as desired.
I also do not recommend sos for all subjects we tried this in 4th for ds and he got tendinitis. Totally not a good plan. I would recomend Science, or History be done that way if they want but English Id choose BJU English 5 and Math go with TT or MUS
