I was at a garage sale yesterday and got most of 1,2,4,5,6,7 grade curriculum. I got it all for $280. I got home last night and checked everything I had on there website and the new cost would've been about $1600. So for the price I think I did great. But this is different to me. Last year for 5K we did saxon math which we loved and for reading we did teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. I've been driving myself crazy figuring out what to use this year. I was planning to stay with the saxon math and the we were going to do five in a row. But I couldn't turn down these books yesterday at the sale. I'm hoping my son will enjoy the Abeka books. I scared of the change. I hope it won't take us all day to get though our work with these program. Is anybody using this program? WHat have to found to be the pros and cons? how much time to you spend with these books each day?
Hi. We have used A Beka since day one. We really enjoy it. We were given a Saxon math book to try out but decided to stick with A Beka. A Beka's math is a bit advanced as well as the spelling but it was still easy enough for us to work with. The reading program is fabulous. I do not know if you got everything that assists with reading but it is broken down so the child learns quickly. A Beka starts the children out from day one on cursive. Some people found this a bit difficult but if your child is not ready you can skip it until later. A Beka comes with a lot of extras to assist in your child's education, I don't know if you were able to get these but they are fun and help out a lot. I think you could still teach without them with no problem at all. What we really enjoy are the colorful pages and the scriptures that are found throughout the books. I have heard some people say that they thought it advances to quickly without enough direction. I haven't struggled with this myself but if you do you can always slow down to your pace. I hope this was helpful. Patty
GOOD FOR YOU!!! Don't you love buys like that? If it doesn't work out, you can always sell the stuff and buy something else.
Hello There! We used A Beka for K5 and will be using it again this next year. Marlie LOVED the colorful aspect of their books and it is just advanced enough for her but not too hard that she gets discouraged. We stared FIAR (Five in a Row) in January and she REALLY, REALLY LOVES that! We use A Beka for our Reading, Writing, Phonics and Math and FIAR for Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Art. It's worked GREAT for us. It's just enough A Beka and then we can move on to something a little different. Plus, in FIAR it's all so laid out for you. As a beginning hser, I've loved that aspect! I would highly recommend the combo! It's worked VERY well for us! In fact we gave up the A Beka "extras" for FIAR and it's been working beautifully! Good luck to you!
Here is a review of A Beka by Cathy Duffy. http://cathyduffyreviews.com/major-publishers.htm Is your oldest child 5 ? Unless you have the consumable materials by the time your 5 year old is old enough to use the older grades, or any of them for that matter, the consumables may be out of print. Publishers of curriculum reprint their materials every so often. Are the materials current editions that you purchased ? Unless they are the current editions you will not be able to purchase the workbooks etc. that go with them that are consumable. You may be better off selling what you are not going to use right away on ebay or a homeschool classified instead of holding onto these for years only to find you cannot get all of the components.Keep in mind that a textbook that is current in this years catalog may be out of print in the next. Also, at this point you may not be able to know what you are going to use in a few years from now. Does anyone know how often ABeka has been reprinting their textbooks ?
I read the review and, personally, I don't find it 100% accurate, but it is accurate in some aspects. I'm not sure if the author is trying to speak for all users or some. However, they definitely hit the nail on the head when they said there is a lot of work, but as with any curriculum, you have to pace your child accordingly. They are also accurate in stating that there are many tests. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. Every Friday is test day for us, unless we complete the week early. I believe K-2nd grade have testing for Math along with daily speed drills. There are also oral drills but we alternate them. They have language, Letters and Sounds(phonics) tests which are optional as well as any test. Once the student hits 3rd grade I think they start testing you in almost every area but none of this is written in stone, you can adjust as needed. From my personal experience, I do not find anything confussing in the guides or keys. They have been very helpful for us. One thing I learned early on is the fact that you can take any curriculum and adjust it to work for you. We mainly use A Beka but I will supplement with Alpha Omega cursive, the next grade level, because A Beka's is too simple for my daughter. We use Houghtin Mifflin (sp?) History and Geograghy in addition to A Beka. If you have the teachers guide, they state that some of the work may be a bit challenging at first but they also advise teachers to go at the childs pace. As Jackie stated, you can always sell it if it doesn't work out because what works for one homeschooler may not work for another. God bless and good luck.
Wow what a find! I think either way, with abeka, we have used thier readers, becasue my church's school gives us thier left overs of whatever grade I need at the time. I also have used thier writing tablets,... uhmm point ya the point! Thier information is really awesome so even if reproducable type matierial is off, you can make your own up if you need to. I have seen thier workbooks, only seen one hard cover so now I have to ask a question.... what text books do they have? My oldest has also done Abeka English 1, I am making him finish the parts in the book he did not have to do during school though. He got his Stanford results this week and he needs work in some of thier areas, but did better than I expected for a first ever test... Im gonna start a thread on that so look for it?
atkelley, I want to ad that as far as needing consumables you may want to ask around to see which subjects you will really need the consumables. Some are obvious, I think, like spelling and math. In the early grades when they use consumable math and spelling workbooks I don't think you can go without those but there may be some other subjects you won't really need them. Or by chance, do you already have the consumables ?
She did not let her kids write in most of the books because she wanted to be able to resell them. For the younger grades I have the student books, and test books, and then from 4-7 I have the student books, as well as the teacher book, test books, and the answer keys. The things that I need to purchase she wrote down for me and ebay has it for a good price. The change just scares me so much. I can't believe there are so many choices on the market. I want my kids to be able to learn the fastest, easiest and most enjoyable way possible.
I think it was smart to get the books at such a good price! As others said, you can always sell them to others if you find they don't work for you or your children! The fastest, easiest and most enjoyable way of learning can be different for every child and often changes each year or so, so don't be surprised if that happens. It's nothing wrong that you have done, it's just the changing and growing that your children are doing, and different personalities and learning styles! So be open to other possibilities, and don't get discouraged if the A Beka doesn't work out. As you said, there is so much available out there, so many choices, that you'll find things that will fit. Maybe A Beka is a great fit. I hope so! Best wishes to you!
Just in case anyone is interested I have homeschool books for sale. All of them are Christian Liberty Press books. I represented them at the CHEF of Alabama. After the fair, any of the materials that I didn't sell were mine to keep except for the hard back books. I am also on www.ioffer.com. If ther is anyone out there who is interested my user ID on this site is sharkin. This is a good thing for me to participate in every year because I get to keep the books that I could use in homeschooling my daughter. I have really good prices. My books are either $2 or $3. I have spelling workbooks that include tests in the back, phonics work books with the teacher's manual. I don't sell the teacher's manuals seperately. I am selling the workbooks with the manuals for $3. I am mentioning this because I have a lot of books that I don't need to use.
Do you have any Science and Social studies books with TE that I can use for 3-6th? I am wanting to do those subjects together with my 3rd,5th and 6th graders. Also, I'm using A Beka for everything except Science and Social Studies right now.( I just sold my 6th grade S.Studies complete set to a couple so I can't use that one!) Although I DID use the 5th grade Science with all 3 today and they did much better than I anticipated praise God. And because of a mess up on my part, I have 3 student books and the the teacher book too so now I'm thinking it wasn't a mistake but God looking out for me, really big ;-) I was overwhelmed at first but found that it's only because they need to learn their tables which praise God they are doing. We'll be able to fall in once they do that. The rest is slowly falling in place and thanks to some of you kind ladies I'm not stressing like I was ;-) I can't remember what book I was told to get for all three for either Science or S.Studies but would appreciate it if you could tell me, it was for Science or S.Studies 2nd through 8th grade I believe. Thanks and God bless, Bonnie
Wow I always wanted to do classes together with my kids, this Bible thing is the closest I am doing, we had books for Bible 4 and ds now has it on SOS as well, so they are both doing it, even though it is WAY easy for dd12 , she said it would be fun! I have to say my kids know the Word of God better than I thought they did, it amazed me when they started carying on conversations as if they were understanding the purpose and ideas behind thier studies! They look at the bible curriculuim as FUN WOrk, too so thats good! I almost had my 12 and now 15 yr old working together when they were younger because she almost caught up wiht him. She is one year behind him in schooling. I made her stop there so he could keep his eggo, well you know what I mean? Big brothers do not need little sisters passing them up,it puts a chink in thier armour.
I do understand about the brother. I'm raising 3 grandchildren and 2 are girls,8 & 12. The boy is 10. Have to help him keep his identity. BIG He's the middle child and as a middle child myself I know how that is. Although his has the distinction of being the only boy. I was the second girl and my brother was the 'baby". I didn't think I would teach them together but it seems to work. In math I will put them on their own level when they get the 'tables' mastered. Although I may keep the 2 oldest together since the boy is a quick learner and only one year difference in grade level. Also in English as it is GD"s hardest subject. I will probably do 5th grade level and work our way up. She can use the review as the public schools here did not do my babies justice. Baby girl can do her level. Also am thinking that reading will be together except for the "Read&Think" skill sheets I got with A Beka. I figure we can read books together that won't be too easy for the oldest 2 nor too hard for the"baby" and then they can give reports. Will expect more from the oldest 2 of-course. All 3 like being and working together so that's a blessing. Also spelling I'm doing seperate. Someone on this forum told me about a book for either Science or Social Studies for the 2nd to 8th grade that I want to check out. I hope it was for Social Studies as they did well today with the 5th grade Science A Beka. As I said, I have 3 student books and a TE plus all test and quizzess with answers. So I can always make copies. This gets better to me as I get a little more confident in myself. Again, my thanks to all you ladies who helped me get to this point! My GS said the other day that he liked HS as he was learning things. That really made me feel good! Lord willing, I'm on the right road. I just thank God you guys are here for support and backup. (((HUGS)))&God bless, Bonnie
I could never go by those kinds of reviews. I think it's better to hear from people who use the curriculum, whether they had a good or disappointing time with it. Yesterday I found Grade K and 1 Abeka Art books at a second hand store here. They were $2 each, but I wouldn't call them art books I'd call them craft books.
Bonnie, I've used Considering God's Creation for science and The Mystery of History with all three of my kids at once. Yours are just the perfect age for both of those programs. There's lots of other history programs, too, that are good for multi-age groups. It is SO MUCH EASIER to do them all together!
I'm sorry if I got away from the original post. I actually am using A Beka and like it. It is a little more advanced than what my kids were used to, but like I said, once I get them up to par, I believe they will be fine. I like how they keep God in everything and the way they do it. Of-course this is my first year so I have no idea what other curriculum is like. I DO intend to go with A Beka next year for Math and Language. And will proabably use the 6th grade Science I have for next year as I'm using the 5th grade this year. And I am going to use some of the 3rd grade Science as well. Again, sorry I got away from original thread. However, I still ask if anyone knows the book that was good for 2nd to 8th grade? I'd really like the name. I found it but didn't order it and now can't remember the name. (((HUGS)))&God bless, Bonnie
