I know quite a few here who by the Sonlight Core packages- everything is in there, you don't have to do a thing really. But they're like 700 some dollars! I looked through it personally when I was visiting someone's house before we started hsing and about the only thing that I saw that I liked were the readers. I did a lot of research before we pulled dd from public and ended up putting my own things together. Mainly to save money, but also because I know her learning style and no packaged curriculum had everything that would fit her. I do however like Sonlight for the fact that I could put my own things together and I did find a lot on there. Like our handwriting. I was going to go with No Tears because its' what everyone else was talking about and using, but I didn't like the formation of the letters. I am not going to teaching italics- totally messed me up in grade school to go from italics to cursive so we will be going from printing to cursive using A Reason for Handwriting. DD LOVES her handwriting book and we just do one little section a day, though I have her write on the penmanship paper for other things as well. I think when all is said and done we'll have spent around 250 for all of dd's curriculum for 1st grade- granted I'll have to order some things in the fall again since we are working through summer and doing 1st grade work now, but she will technically be a 1st grader in the fall. I buy a lot of supplementary workbooks and things that look like fun too if I see something I like.
Well I still have edHelper apparently I forgot about that subscription.... I had wanted to see "Design-A-Study" books and found the entire thing (6 books) on eBay and won the set for $28 including shipping. Well worth it to me to look at and at least extract information out. I think the Horizon workbooks might be more the speed of both my kids though after relooking at it. They both "get" math quickly so I don't want to hold them back. I just have to spend some time laying out a "time-line" for some of the other stuff and work it all in together.
I do know that Christian Liberty Press puts together a decent curriculum and it's not very much---less than LifePacs, at least it used to be. It has everything you need all written out for you, and is easy to use. When i was totally confused about homeschooling my first year, that's what I used. But that was almost 10 years ago now, and there wasn't nearly as much homeschool stuff available back then!!! It still may be worth a look. I started branching out after awhile, but I was pleased with the core curriculum, and it helped put me at ease for making sure I was giving my ds all that he needed. He was in 2nd grade when we started homeschooling. http://ebiz.netopia.com/clpress/ They're having the annual sale right now, through April. Everything ordered on-line is 30% off!
If there was a cheering squad for unit studies then I would be on it! we do almost everything through unit studies, only maths, music and english (reading, writing, language arts) are seperate here. I put together my own curriculum and my own unit studies (mostly). There are huge amounts of free lesson plans on the net - I usually start with those and supplement from library books or teacher guides I have picked up cheaply at the scholastic factory outlet. Don't be afraid to put it together yourself - it is so much more interesting and fun, and you get better at it as you go. be brave, have fun building it - go unit sutdies!!!
Woweee Just a thought...based on what you've said. Have you looked at My Father's World? http://www.mfwbooks.com/ It's real nice. I'd file them under classical and unit study approach. Unit Studies http://www.hsiz.org/resources.asp?resourceCatID=388 Boxed Curriculum Secular http://www.hsiz.org/resources.asp?resourceCatID=283,373,374 Boxed Curriculum Christian http://www.hsiz.org/resources.asp?resourceCatID=283,373,375 We use Geography Matters for Geography and LOVE it! I won't have to buy any other Geography materials for World Study. We will do US when we finish world but...LOVE IT! http://www.geomatters.com Just be sure that you get the Ultimate Guide (forget all the words). It is worth the money upfront. I also got the cd with my world book and just print the worksheets off that go in the notebooks for them to fill in the blanks. Check around the categories and the links on www.hsiz.org and that will give you a great springboard. You really need to consider your children's learning style and your teaching style when getting your curriculum laid out. I don't have tons of time to put things together but...I like to lay my own stuff out NOW. I didn't when I first started because I had the new homeschooler fear that I would forget something or leave something out. gasp. It's a fun journey, enjoy the ride!
I like the geography stuff - I book marked it Researching will probably never stop for me....so I do continue to look for stuff. Last night I found Accelerated Learning - it's a CD which supposedly has a TON of info on it... I ordered the demo to see. It says it can take you from K all the way through 12. I am curious - over on homeschoolreview.com there was only 1 or 2 people who said something negative about it. So I'm curious. For $99 for an entire base program just seems too good, but it might work and I'm willing to look at it
Wow thanks Sheila! I checked some of the testing, looked at the texas assessment test.. theres a hundred and thirty two pages! Guess thats why its free to print you pay for it in ink and paper anyway hahahah! I saved the link anyway
TMom, What dh doesn't like about the math is they are so slow and don't give enough problems when the child needs to work on that problem more.... I don't like them for history because they only cover a important event for a short while then its done. But remember that is my opionin and we are different.. so no tomatoes PLEASE
No worries no tomatoes here ! I was just curious cause I have used it for 8 years and I find it slow moving and that ws with Life Pak , when we used Horizon it was fast and my son was fast at the time, but when things started getting tough we shifted to Life Pak and it was slower, which HE needed but the other two get bored easily. I find Life paks go over it too much, like the addition and subtraction, my son hates all teh work it is so we ended up doing odds and evens to get through all the work last year. This year with SOS its basically same stuff but on computer. I am looking to see if I want something different for Math for him and may go with Horizon because it IS faster. Not sure though,
Deena thank you also for the CLP I looked into it and am now thinking on maybe switching this year since my free copy of SOS is up next year. I mean this year as the last year of SOS for all subjects. I have used sample copies of Math with this company and know my kid liked that. So I am thinking on it now. Will pray about it between now and the end of April when we will order our curric. thanks!
Hi, I've been homeschooling my twins for about 3 years now. I have found that not all curriculum is created equal. I think it depends on how much effort and time you are willing to put into their lessons. I use AOP lifepac's for language arts, but I don't buy the teachers guides, they didn't prove very useful for me. I have my boys keep a daily journal and we do lots and lots of creative writing exercises. I use Saxon Math, they are 8 and in 54. I love it. I even learn from it. Plus I like how the program adds just one new skill at a time, and if you find a problem area you can do extra work in that area. I just started using Abeka for Science and Safety and Manners. The boys seem to like it and my husband is always doing some type of activity that centers around science with them. We planted an herb garden, make slime, measure wind speed, plus they read and read and read about the world around them in books. Plus you can always catch something cool on the Discovery Channel. Geography, I started "Cantering the Country" and it was okay, just a tad invovled for the boys. But we do a lot of hands on. Last summer we followed the Oregon Trail via the car route, the boys used cameras, wrote about everything and then published their own book using lulu.com. It was great fun. Right now we are doing an entire unit on the middle ages. They like Knights and Dragons and because they are interested in it, they are learning. I downloaded a typing program for them for free so they can learn how to type. They take piano lessons from a retired teacher up the road....we are busy with just learning! I guess I like to mix and match. I try to keep learning fun, some things are important to me, other things really aren't. We do the normal stuff like practice our handwriting, and we READ, READ and then READ some more.
