Where do I find corriculum for my kids. My 3 kids are finishing the year out in PS. So I have until September to get ready. They will be in 2nd,3rd ,and 5th grade when we start. The ones who will be in 3rd and 5th grades have both been retained. My soon to be second grader was just diagnosed with dyslexia. I believe my son also has it. My other son is doing great this year with strait A's. He would've been in the 4th beginning next year. I'm considering using 4th grade books on him. He never has to study and still has outstanding grades. We have a tight budget. I have 1800 a year for 3 kids. I think that is way more than we are going to need for supplies. I consider myself to be quite frugal. Is it ok to use the internet and print out free stuff and just teach off of that or is it better to buy text books and suppliment with the internet printouts?? Someone please point me to the right direction. We do have a ton of reading material and we go to the library at least once a week. We have some text books all ready from yard sales and thrift stores. The math,grammer,and spelling have me stumped. thanks in advance. Angela TX
Many people use the internet and library. My daughter reads well, so we do not use readers anymore. She reads what she likes. You can get a lot of books for reading at the Salvation Army, thrift shops, or yard sales. I purchase my pencils and other supplies at the dollar stores. There are many ways to cut the cost. Are you looking for a Christian based curriculum or a secular curriculum. Patty
I definately want a christian based corriculum. Is there a way to stay away from text books or is that something I'm just going to have to do??? Probably a stupid question but I don't want to spend a ton of money if I don't absolutly need to. I'd rather use the money to go on family/learning based outings than on books. Angela
It's ALWAYS hard to point people in a direction for curriculum without having all the pieces. We typically recommend to people to get something laid out or "boxed" their first year. This gives you the layout of how much and what should be covered. After that one year it's up to you if you toss this and that and add this and that. lol Printing material off the internet and using the library are all excellent. Just remember that printing things does cost paper and ink. ;o) Have you looked at Sonlight or My Father's World? You sound like you are trying to avoid textbook so....speak up and let us help you. Where in TX are you? There are Smoothing the Way groups all over TX and we mentor to new homeschoolers. Check to see if there is a group near you. It's some of the best money you will spend on your journey.
Hi, Angela! We just started homeschooling this year, so a year ago I was just where you are now! We checked this book out of the library: http://www.home-school.com/catalog/pages/mpguide.php3 (In it's previous edition it was called The Big Book of Home Learning, Volume 1 , so look for that title at your library if they don't have the new edition!) and found it to be VERY helpful in deciding what "kind" of homeschooling we wanted to do. I highly recommend it! What "method" you use depends on a lot of things: how much prep time you want to spend every week; what kind of learners your children are; what kind of learner (and therefore teacher!) you are... Different methods (or combinations of methods) work better with different people. We all do it a little differently. Here is a fun website that will give you an idea of what kind of learners you and your children are: http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/calculators/learningstyle/learningstyle1.jhtml
yes, I would like to stay away from text books but I really don't know what other way to go. I've read up on differant homeschooling methods. The unschooling seems like it would be nice but I don't know how it would work out with the kids. I think they may need a little bit more structure. Advice?? Thanks angela
Is there a homeschool supply store in your area. I would recommend taking a few trips there and just looking at the pruducts. We have one about 40 miles from us. I took a couple of trips and looked through the products before making purchases. I wished I would have spent more time examining the teachers manuals to get more of an idea of how the curr. was intended to be used, something I did not always pick up on entirely looking as the student workbooks etc. There are several websites where users review homeschool materials, and you can find some reviews on Amazon.com. There are also books of review that might be in your local library. www.homeschoolreviews.com is such a website. www.cathyduffyreviews.com is another. She also has a book. The two largest publishers, of specifically Christian HS curr., it seems to me, are Abeka, and Alpha Omega. BJU is also well known. I am not as familiar with Abeka and BJU, but do know that AO has several different curr.s to choose from. These and many ohers are on the above site. I find reading the reviews insightful.
We went to the bookstore when we first started and found a book for our youngest that is a complete curriculum for her grade. It has the lessons for math, reading, writing, language, and spelling. The book was about $20.00. It has been a big help even though we don't use it exclusively. It even has a section for test prep. It was at Barnes and Noble. Ours is called simply Grade 3 Complete Curriculum. It is not a Christian type book but was so helpful for us to get started with. They didn't have it for our 8th grader but had smaller books in different subjects that we used at first. Now we have a collection of things to choose from that we have bought and people have given us. I like these workbooks because they were not very expensive and gave us a chance to get off to a good start. Best of luck to you. Beth
homeschool I'm in Snyder,Tx and there is NOTHING here other than Walmart and Dollar General or Family Dollar. The closest city is about 90 miles from us but we do go at least once a month so I'll have to see what they have. I know that mardell's has teaching supplies but I never looked to see if they had workbooks. Angela
Hi Angela! Welcome. This is my first year hs and we use the Charlotte Mason method. We don't use textbooks except for math. We use Math U See. I use the library a LOT and also used book stores. I have also ordered used books online. There is so much info on the Charlotte Mason method that I could tell you but to save time go to www.amblesideonline.org and check it out if you are interested. I can tell you dd10 and I love it and it suits us and our schedule and life perfectly.
Walmart actually offers a fairly good selection of workbooks and when I checked a few days ago they were still offering $.97 shipping. I picked up my dd a book at Christmas time that was cheaper (including shipping) than I could have gotten it at B&N. One thing I like with this is that you can purchase a gift card and use that to place your order.
Hil Angela! I will tell you some of what I do. Keep in mind that there is no one way to homeschool. Whatever works best for you is fine. First of all, I would buy math books for each of your children at whatever level they are on. I personally use Horizons at that level. These are workbooks that a child writes in, so you really do need to buy them "new" each year. There's so much to know in math that I don't trust myself to do it on my own from the internet. But that's just me. You can teach all three of your children history and science together. I absolutely swear by "The Mystery of History" by Linda Hobar. Volumne I takes Ancient History from Creation through the Ressurection and puts it into a Biblical time frame. It is designed to be used with multi-age groups. The book costs $34 through Rainbow Resource, but you might be able to buy it used for around $20. Science you can also buy a program that can be used with all your kids. I've used "Considering God's Creation" in the past; right now I'm doing "Great Science Adventures". Again, you can buy texts used. But it is NOT NECESSARY to buy texts in history or science if you don't want to! Pick a time you want to study...Ancient Egypt, for example...and go to the library and read all you can on it. Rainbow Resource is probably the cheapest place to buy new books. They will send you a GIGANTIC catalog. It has over 1000 pages!!! I keep mine right by the computer, and always check what the prices are there before I buy anything used! Their web site is: www.rainbowresource.com My favorite place for buying used curriculum is: www.homeschoolclassified.com
If you like the idea of doing lots of hands on stuff with all the kids together, you might look at Konos: http://www.konos.com/ I think it looks like a LOT of fun, AND it is very highly regarded scholastically.
marylyn_TX, I think I LOVE YOU LOL!! That is EXACTLY what I was looking for!!!! I still have to find a good math,and Language course for each of my kids. But now we are getting somewhere. YIPEE!! Angela
We use LEM phonics, and it is excellent. My ds 10 was 8 when we started using it and not reading at all - he is also dyslexic. I highly recommend it. As it is Australian, you would have to get it sent to you, but the bonus for you is that the prices are also in Australian dollars, which converts favourable in your direction. It is a christian based program, you can just buy the books as you go, they're not expensive, they're easy to use and they work. dd10 is now almost reading at age level! Check out their site https://www.lem.com.au/welcome.html other than that I use a lot of eclectic stuff - love the library and internet. You could definately do it that way if you had enough time to find what you need. Good luck, Karen
You could also try some of these sites: http://www.abcteach.com www.educationworld.com www.tampareads.com www.sitesalive.com http://www.rainforestmaths.com http://lwww.littleshop.physics.colostate.edu www.k12science.org http://www.enchantedlearning.com www.awesomelibrary.org http://www.lessonplansearch,com http://www.lessonplanspage.com http://www.lessonplanz.com http://www.proteacher.com http://www.teachers.net/lessons Also, you can access the NSW curriculum documents at http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ It is of course Australian, but it contains the entire curriculum for here, including lesson ideas and resources, and it's all free, so parts of it might be useful to you. Happy surfing!
Angela, Did you look at Sonlight and My Father's World as I suggested? Both KONOS and My Father's World fall into a unit study category. It's ALWAYS worth a look. It would be a good idea for you to try and attend one of the many homeschool conventions. Yes, you'd have to drive and stay over but...the hands on look feel and touch is priceless. Did you look to see if there was a STW group anywhere nearby? www.smoothingtheway.com Most of the Homeschool conventions are in May so....that would still give you plenty of time to research before you jumped in. HTH
In my opinion, I think putting your own stuff together can be great! But math is one thing that should be as consitent as possible, especially as they get older! They need a strong base to draw from. For history from a Christian perspective, I also would recommend Mystery of History. It's got activities and mapping and all sorts of stuff to make history interesting! It has stuff to do for different age groups, so you could use it for all of your children together, which is nice!
Deena, I saw the Mystery of History Vol. 1 for about $25.00. It said it was in new condition. Is that a good price for it and do you have to have the CD? I have never seen it so I am curious. Thanks, Beth
Beth, I don't have the cd. I think $25 is a good price! I looked, and couldn't find it for that price, so mine cost a little more than that.
