I'm curious what kinds of curriculum you all use? From the posts it appears that some of you create your curriculums from scratch. So I got to wondering, how many of you: use a pre-packaged curriculum, use resources from many different curriculums, or create your own curriculum from scratch?
Right now I am using bits of different things for reading. We are using The Reading Lesson to get them started in reading, and reading from a series of progressive first grade readers I'm wondering where to go from there. I am leaning toward the idea of putting 6yo through an older version of Hooked On Phonics, so I guess you could say that I'm using a curriculum, but it doesn't all go together, I just take what I need/want from everywhere. I'm letting them use workbooks for practice or basic introduction to a formalized way of exercising skills, but I'm building their main math curriculum from scratch to be used in the Fall.
oohh. my favorite topic. lol. I do my own bits and pieces, although I bought more this year than I have before. (I think...I don't really keep track) I start by writing an essay of sorts about the boys strengths and weaknesses and what I hope to accomplish in the coming year. (and at the end I write about their progress and what we did.) I then make up a list of subjects I want to cover. There is some discussion with the boys on this, if there is anything they want to focus on as they are old enough to have some input. I then look at what is out there for that subject. I have never been tempted by a box curriculum, as that is really what I was trying to avoid. I tend to wander into unit study sort of things...I at least try to keep a common thread with history and science and literature...but sometimes it is too difficult. So. Math, we have used Saxon and still will with ds the younger (10) and we are going to explore Aleks and TT for the elder (13) I also have some workbooks that I pull out for car trips...and days I am working. (more of reinforcement on concepts they already are familiar with) History I have gone round and round with. I look at a few textbooks, read a bit out of each of them...and I am trying to introduce the same time periods with fiction. And movies. Lang. Arts has been a challenge too. We are currently doing: Hands on Essays (new) Giggle 's in the Middle (new) and Vocabulary Vines (also new...but so far I love this one.) I am making up a computer class for Jazz...he already types well. I couldn't find a curriculum...I didn't want programing. I wanted using. So I bought a Office for dummies book and we are going through that. I am writing the assignments out and using small paragraphs out of Ranger Rick for him to type and then do whatever with...copy paste...replace...fonts etc. for bible (which has also been a challenge) we are reading God is Closer than You Think. I haven't started it yet.
I use lots of different things from different publishers. Sometimes we use the book as is with extra supplements as interest and time permits (like MOH), other times I use several resources to combine them into my own "perfect" curriculum. I have never bought a pre packaged curriculum with all subjects coming from one publisher.
This year's plan: Catherine (12yrs) Singapore Discovering Mathematics 1 Singapore Interactive Science for Inquiring Minds 1 Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Voyage, Practice Voyage and A World of Poetry Megawords 1 or Jensen Vocabulary Remedia Outlining Jensen Punctuation Canada: A People's history and library/internet resources Getting Started With Latin L'Art De Lire 1 (French) Harry (8) Singapore Primary Mathematics 2 Singapore My Pals Are Here Science 3/4 Dancing Bears Phonics Apples and Pears Spelling First Language Arts Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Story of the World 1
I should note that I used to be much more unschooly or put-stuff-together but I reviewed this spring and realized things go smoother when we have open-and-go stuff. Plus, too much has happened in my personal life to make planning it all out myself realistic this year.
Personally, I am way too textbooky/workbooky to be comfortable putting together my own stuff for much of anything, but I think I may be starting to get over it a little. I have done my own K and 1 level stuff for science and social studies by putting together some stuff off the internet, some little workbooks from a teacher store, coloring books, and library books - about friends and family, community helpers, our state, birds, insects and spiders, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates (like worms, slugs and snails, etc.). For the most part, though, I like CLE and R&S with some CLASS thrown in here and there, Pentime for writing, Daily Grams or Sequential Spelling or --- I like to use whole courses, but I pick my publisher according to what I want to do and how well it fits the student.
Hi I currently put my own stuff together from here and there. We lapbook, notebook, scrapbook, unit study, workbook, worksheet, hands on sciences, home ec, field trips, natural learning(ie: exploring the physical world), file folder games, silly sentences and so on. Lots of teacher/student conversation and q/a time. This year being we are Canadian I am going to start a french program for both kids from scratch. There is one offered through our homeschool group but the teacher as I understand speaks only in french from beginning to end which is more french then my kids would handle. So I am going to start with the basics and work up from there. We also include other life skills as school stuff. Husband does things like mechanics, electricity, building and so on with them. The main thing is they are learning and having fun so that they build a love of learning. For example my daughter was the 'teacher' the other day, she is five and she pulled out one of her workbooks and handed it to me. I read the questions and pretended I didn't know the answers so teacher could help. Before you know it she had completed three pages. She had so much fun being teacher helping she didn't realize she was doing the work I also like that I make the curriculum up as it allows for more exploration of interests. I let the kids pick what they would like to know more about and we study it. So far it has been working. I think when they get to the older grades I will likely buy some form of curriculum if I feel it is needed for topics I am rusty on. Also a note in Ontario where we live the government doesn't have any requirements for hours or content taught when homeschooling so we do have a LOT of freedom to pick and choose.
I am the type that needs things planned out. Last year I started using Sonlight with dd and loved it. The fact that my Bible, History, LA/Reading, Science are all planned out for me is wonderful. For non Sonlight curriculum I need to plan it all out for the year. I like a bunch of differnt publishers and will switch around. I especially did this for high school with sd.
Thanks for indulging my curiosity! I am a mix-and-matcher myself but sometimes feel like I should just buy a complete curriculum b/c I'm always second guessing myself:roll: It is helpful to hear what all of you do!
I'm totally a mix-and-matcher. I pull stuff from all over the place. Since we're in Canada, I like to pull as much Canadian-based curriculum as I can, but it's difficult to find.
Hey- Angie go to my blog I have a tonne of Canadian links to sites with free lesson plans to download. http://www.adventurehollow.blogspot.com
Mix-n-Match here....catered to what we feel is best for our son, his learning style & what he has a desire to learn more about.
It is EASY to buy an all-in-one curriculum, but that may be the ONLY easy thing about it. There are some people this works, but a great many people find one company's book works for math and another works for science, etc. A few of the best reviewed resources specialize in one subject: science- Apologia- they do have a writing book and they may have other things, but science is what they are known for and the reviews are mostly great. math- Teaching Textbooks, Saxon, and Math u See are some that specialize (even though I thing Saxon has other subjects) and they are highly rated The all-in-one companies like Bob Jones and A Beka and Alpha and Omega all have there pluses and minuses and I have used some of all of these at one time or another, BUT you miss out on the GREATLY reviewed sources out there if you ONLY consider buying an all in one. If your child stuggles in math, the BJU or A Beka book may only make it harder for them. If you children are young, don't fret too much. I say this because you have no way of knowing what will work at first. I would highly suggest that you buy as much used as you can and go to the homeschool convention and look and get some ideas. You don't have to buy everything there, you can take notes and look for great deals at a homeschool store, used book store, or on line. You may try something and it flops. That happens to all of us. Don't worry try something new and move on. Don't worry about gaps, especially if they are young. A lot of stuff is repeated.
We are a make it up as we go kinda crew for the most part. Garrett requested TT for math, and we are using Caught'ya Grammar for LA, but other than that for him it's what ever direction we decide to go we just wing it. For the littles, I bought McRuffy Phonics, Math and Science... I also bought Funtastic Frogs.. we play with the frog stuff, but right now we aren't doing much with the McRuffy (don't tell hubby..lol).
Wow! I love your blog, lots of great links! Thanks! By the way, I make my own cirriculum, because right now money is really tight, it's time consuming, but there is so much free stuff available out there!
I'm a fly by the seat of my pants type of gal-even if I could afford a total pre-packaged curriculum I don't think it would work for us...so I'm a throw together myself type of gal and, using lots of free resources. Here's our curriculum plans as of right now.
I mix and match. For three years now I have been doing unit studies that I either made up myself or got ideas for from places like learningpage.com or homeschoolshare.com. I got tons of books from the library and only used curriculum for math and language arts (Horizon for math and Lifepac and Explode teh Code for LA last year). This year I am doing things a little differently. I am using Galloping the Globe as my spine for Social Studies and Considering God's Creation for Sciece. I think i will probably still do alot of things my own way instead of following them closely, but we will see how it goes. This will be our first year trying notebooking which both of those do. Lapbooks were not a big hit with my boys, but I am hoping notebooking will be a better fit. I wil still be using Horizons math for my 3rd grader, but am using Bob Jones for my kindergartener, it's a much better fit for him. Both will be using Explode the Code (books 1 and 6 respectively). Still trying to figure out what else I want to do for language arts.
We're just starting out, but I'm using My Father's World A-Z. I am a put-it-together myself type, but being practical (since we have a new-ish baby) meant I needed to get over my needs (I love being creative!) and focus on my dd's needs which at the moment are much more structured than my own. The MFW is not "spot on" for all of her abilities - slow in some areas, fast in others - but since we're just starting out that's fine. It is also a lot of fun for us both and I love the biblical backbone. I have to remind myself that God helps other people have good ideas too - not just ME! *teehee* Sound conceited, but it's true!
