This is our first year homeschooling and I bought the whole kit from Abeka, 1st grade. Now reading several things online I think I might piece mine together from here on out. Any advice?
Invest in a printer And look for free resources online. I have a bunch of lessons listed on my blog www.adventurehollow.blogspot.com You can just input anything in your search engine and find premade lesson plans out there. Make sure you cover all the subjects you want to. I include the 3 r's everyday and make a unit either weekly/monthly to cover on a topic of interest for one/both of the kids. I then include a craft or several art projects for that topic. It's really not that hard to make the lessons up. I find if you can find the time even an hour every eve after the kids are in bed to devote to planning and keeping track of what you are having them learn. I like to record what we are learning and compile most lesson outlines for units in Microsoft works. Its quick and easy. You can also find a lot of free worksheets online for most things. And www.homeschoolshare.com has a tonne for wonderful lapbooks for the younger kids. Just print and go.
I started with an Abeka kit, too, but within a month, I'd ditched it. It took me a year to finally become comfortable with my choices. I mostly just said, "here's what I'm looking for, and I want this but not that". People here gave me suggestions they thought might fit, and then I looked online, at Mardel's or found local friends who had copies so I could see what everything really was. I'm usually not a fan of printing everything out. I'd much rather work from a book or workbook. So... what do you not like about Abeka? What would you like to change?
I think when a lot of start out we are attracted to the "all-in-one" package, even if it expensive and time consuming to use. Then we realize we can go with this from here and that from there, AND we can do a lot of this without "curriculum" and for free from the library. WOO-HOO. I am just learning this and we still use a lot of traditional looking stuff. I just research the different materials and with my son and myself in mind, I make the best decision I can. I have made numerous mistakes and I have a lot of partially used books. I would pray. I would also NOT stress out over the stuff you are "supposed" to teach your child and the schedule that someone, somewhere put out there that all kids "should" go by. That is a so not the way to help a child learn. I would cover the basics, or even delay them if you wish. There is a viewpoint that kids do better with delayed academics (8 or 10 years old even). But, if you do teach, I would not try to cover all the subjects and extracurriculars and this and that. You get my drift. It is easy to think all this stuff is being left out and then overwhelm yourself and your child. Science and history, while there are textbooks for young ages, can be just enjoyed at this age without a "lesson plan." You can read up on interesting science and history topics. She/He will most likely retain more this way than forced textbook learning.
I took mine out later, my daughter was in 5th. My son in 3rd. She had gone to a Christian school in 1st and 2nd. I knew I wanted to use the Grammar program they used but not the math. I looked up everything online about math programs before I decided. I am doing that again as we get into the high school subjects, Algebra, Geometry, etc. I finally this year quit thinking I have to follow the public school's format. We do our own, and they are doing fine. I do have the book THE Well Educated Child by Susan Wise Bauer. It helped me get my brain wrapped around some of the What am I doing?!?!! The first year I made sure to get the basics in, reading, writing, 'rithmetic, spelling. we have used the History Pockets by Evan More. THey are great for units. I'm still looking fo a good Geography adn History program that I like.
Well im not to fond of the lessons given with abeka. My daughter also seems a bit bored. We really dislike the phonics part of it. Id really like to use old school textbooks but surprisingly am having a hard time finding them. I think I personally would do better teaching how I want instead of feeling obligated to use the lessons. Im just not very confident bc this is our first year and im not quite sure about anything.
Years of experience and trial and error. :roll: Honestly, I think the best thing you can do is ask other people! Make use of this forum as much as possible! See what has worked for others and what has not. Ask specific questions to your situation. I used the library a LOT, usually having to order the books I wanted (I live in a rural area). I used a lot of unit studies, because I loved them. I think the most important thing is to realize that whatever you teach 1) the children are learning 2) is probably better than sitting in a classroom with 30 other kids with no or very little hands on and/or personal attention 3) there is no "magic formula". Learning is learning. It doesn't really matter if they learn world history in sixth grade or eighth grade, or whether they learn it by studying the countries or from reading books or from going through a text of World History. I would also suggest getting a copy of a "Typical Course of Study" - available online from many sources. That will give you a really good idea of what is typically covered in each grade. Then - HAVE FUN WITH LEARNING!!! The one thing I had always hoped to accomplish was that I wanted my children to enjoy learning. Not bookwork. You've made a great choice! Dive in and have fun!:angel:
If you're looking for old school, go with Rod & Staff. That's about as old school as they come! It's a heck of a lot cheaper than Abeka, too. I prefer Explode the Code for phonics, but if I had to choose something to be my all in one kit, I'd probably go with R&S for elementary and Abeka for high school.
What id like to do is take a course study list and use it as a checklist. Build around it and gather things from here and there. That way I know im covering it all and have the year laid out ahead if me.
I use living books for most subjects. Then for the others it just takes research to see what style you want to use.
I have chosen what I use by the reviews I have seen on the internet, what people have told me personally, and a lot of trial and error. :?
In that case, you should either download (free) something like a publisher's scope and sequence (here's Abeka's), use (free) the World Book list (found here), or buy/borrow from the library the "What your ___ grader should know" books (here's an example). The series is very popular, so you can almost certainly find it at the library, used bookstore, or a used list online. Don't pay more than $5 for the book. Amazon lists it for $12 new.
I'm a little different, in that I taught special needs children for 10+ years before hs'ing. There simply WAS NO CURRICULUM to meet the needs of my classroom, so I got use to either coming up with my own or "tweaking" what I had on hand. So it was more or less natural for me to do the same with hs'ing. When I first started and my daughter was little (K), we were part of a small co-op at church. I am one who believes most curriculum written for K is a waste of money, so I didn't buy anything. By the time we were in first grade, I had heard what other moms in the co-op that had been hs'ing for a while had to say. I was able to get my hands on what they used, and learned what and why they made their decisions. Later, I joined here, and you will find that we are constantly discussing different choices. Also, I am blessed with a wonderful library system that has many of the curriculum available. Many times I've got the "greatest" curriculum from the library, to only decide that there's NO WAY it was going to work for me!!! I am thankful I was able to make that decision without wasting money. If you want suggestions for a particular subject, ASK. We are very free with our advice and love to debate the good and bad out there in a particular subject. But be aware also that what works well for one (or even most!) will NOT work well for EVERYone. And sometimes it's "trial by error". And its OK to change mid-stream!
Boomerang- I pretty much did what you are doing- took the typical course of study and started building around that. And then.. I printed off the state of California standards (which are easier to read than Maine). And I about fell out of my chair. The first grade we were doing fine on. The third grade... Ugh. That was sort of the turning point on the scope and sequences for me- no way was ds going to be able to do all the things on it by June. So.. basically use the scope and sequence to determine what I *might* teach this year. Then I decide how much indepth I want to go. I also feel like my grammar school in the 80's did a very decent job with me. It was pretty old-school: phonics, systematic math instruction, drill, etc. That's the way I learned, and I've always done very well (and we only had ONE child in my class who had to have remedial instruction. ONE out of 20!). It does make it difficult sometimes since I am torn between what I learned and wondering if the 'new' ideas have some merit, but our particular ps was really doing an awful job and they completely embraced spiraling and sight words (1/3 of the kids in dd's class had remedial instruction in reading... 5 out of 15. dd would have been #6 if we had agreed to it). Here's what I'm using, in case you are interested: Phonics instruction- I'm using the lessons in the back of 'Why Johnny Can't Read'. It was written in the 50's? and is good old fashioned phonics with zero sight words. Math- Finally settled on Spectrum. No spiralling, mastery based. Very little fluffy math. Sci- Finally bought some basic textbooks. Wanted the pics and the kid-friendly text . Harcourt, I think, but wasn't as choosey since it's backup. Lots of hands on stuff. SS/History- print stuff off the internet. Print coloring pages for our 'history book' in a three ring binder. Lots of discussion, online vids. Will be incorporating a bunch of maps I have here, and REALLY want the nat geo map book :love: Writing/Grammar- Copywork from a list of great quotes I found online. Discussion of grammar and LA concepts but no writing about them (yet.) Health: Discussion topics, no written work. Internet resources. Anyway... not sure if any of this helped you but that's the journey we are on. Dd has only been out of ps since October, but I've been teaching her to read since last April, so I've gotten pretty comfortable with her learning style. From there, it's just a matter of figuring out what I want her to know, and setting up her lessons. **adding: I still print tons of stuff off the internet to suppliment everything.***
This is my first year homeschooling too. When I started researching curriculum, I read reviews and looked at things that both my DS and I would enjoy doing. Some of the packages looked great, but I knew that some of the subjects in them wouldn't work for us. I chose Sonlight for history and literature because the books looked great (and they are!) and I chose Math-U-See because I wasn't strong at math and it made sense to me and my son who was coming out of a public school that had used "fuzzy math". I continued going through each subject picking subjects to fit our personalities and goals for homeschooling. I haven't really looked at the PS standards, but I have three older kids who went through public school, so I have an idea about what they cover.
This is my third year homeschooling and our first year we used Sonlight... loved the stories and everything but decided to use my own approach the next year mainly do to finances. we use a lot of pathways publishing stuff just because it is local for me... and it only cost me about $40 to get all the reading, math and writing books.
I originally had planned to sign up for Catholic school at home (via Kolbe or Seton), but the more research I have done, I feel like I just want to put my own plan in place. It can be overwhelming at the beginning, but there are so many great choices. If something doesn't work for your child, you can just change to something else until you get the right fit. Have confidence! Ask people on here what they use, order some catalogs, read some books and figure out which style you want to use and then...take a leap of faith!
We totally do it ourselves so far. We use a lot from the internet, a lot of workbooks from the educational section of the department stores, but we get most of our stuff from the library. I did get some of our books secondhand from goodwill, garage sales, library sales, etc. such as older spelling books, grammer books, etc. I can see that I will have to actually buy some curriculum pieces maybe next year, but so far this has worked great for us.
This how I did it.... I pick my history book. I look at the Sonlight reading lists and come up with Literature to read. I use the Internet and google for fun crafts and projects. I use Teaching Textbooks for Math b/c that's what my kids like ( use Horizons for my Ker) We love Easy Grammar...dry but to the point!!! It's taken me a while to really trust my instincts...but it happens. Figure out your kids learning styles and fill in!!!
I think it is such a beautiful thing to be able to customize your curriculum around each child. An all-in-one curriculum sort of assumes that all children learn the same, at the same age-level, and in the same way. That's sort of ridiculous, if you think about it. The biggest thing we take into account when choosing curriculum, is each of our children's learning styles. Our older son has always been an auditory learner, and learns really well by hearing things read to him, by reading them aloud to himself, and by taking notes and reading them back to himself. Our younger son is a highly visual learner, and has always needed a lot of visual support with his learning. An eclectic piece-work of curriculum has allowed me to fit their learning needs with the right curriculum, and has allowed them to meet their full potential. Definitely take the learning styles into account when choosing curriculum!! TSmama24
