What curriculum do you use at home? [Archive]

pat123123

03-08-2002, 12:26 PM

Well...I can comment on a few, lol.

When I was in lower grade school we used ACE (School of Tomorrow). It was perfect for my learning style. My sister on the other hand did not do so well with it. We used it with our ds also for a while. He did well with portions of it, but it really wasn't right for him. It has good points and bad points both (Very portable, good solid math and Language Arts instruction. Lacking in History and Science in the lower grades as those portions tend to be mostly religious material. That's fine, but it DID need more History and Science.)

THen, when I was 4th grade, I switched to schools that used Beka and BJU (Bob Jones University) materials primarily. It was a rather rough transition since I was used to working independently. I was extremely advanced in Reading skills, math skills, and language arts in general. I was way behind in Science and in History. Those two areas gave me fits to keep up for quite a while (though I did manage with lots of frustration and hard work).

We've dealt with all these areas for our son--and I have lots of each of them in the house now for various grades. Beka tends to push kids REALLY hard, regardless of grade. They are expected to do a LOT. If you use the entire curricula, it takes many, many hours a day. Also, it takes a LOT of parental involvement and time especially in the early years. (School of tomorrow takes minimal parental involvment after the first couple of years of learning to read). BJU is slightly lower than Beka in what it expects--though it is still a LOT of work. Both are standard textbook type courses though they do (or at least used to) have large workbooks for math and language arts. Personally, as ds gets a little older, I may buy the math and language arts workbooks ONLY from Beka simply for back up materials. I do think the old Reading Comprehension books for 5-6 grade were very useful. I'm not sure if they still make those though I would imagine they do.

On to others...Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons. Splat. We quit that one before long. LOL. We used the first few lessons. It kind of went by the wayside. No particular reason, we just weren't all that enthralled by it. I really didn't like that they used different symbols later in the book and different "cheats." I was concerned about transitioning away from them. A lot of folks really like the book though.

Hmmmmmm....What Your Child Needs to Know in X Grade....
When I FIRST looked at this series I didn't like them. DS was in Kindergarten. I thought there was WAY to much material in them for the grade level. He is now half-way through first grade. I recently looked at them again and have decided that NOW I like them, lol. I purchased the first and second grade books and will be purchasing the Kindergarten book as well. We are now reading (for fun) the information in the first grade book. We just started it yesterday. I figure with our way of schooling, that it will only take a month or so. Then, we'll spend some time going back through the Kindergarten book (which I feel is more suitable for early first graders except perhaps for the math section). Then we'll jump up to the second grade book again. Why are we bothering with the Kindergarten section? Simply because. LOL. I don't feel he'll be quite ready for the second grade book yet and it will give us something to do. In the meantime he'll have learned the necessary first grade material. It'll also be good to go back and read the art, history, and science sections in the K book to make sure he doesn't miss any important concepts.

Our main way of schooling is closer to unschooling. We no longer use a "real" curricula. We watch educational videos, read a lot of books together, ds reads aloud to me most days, I read aloud to him most days as well. He plays with educational toys and uses educational programs on the computer. We even found a Super Nintendo game that is educational if you can imagine that (though it's meant for older grade school or junior high). (Mario's Time Travel if anyone is interested). We do a lot of hand's on exploration with the various sciences, with math, and with life skills. We go on a LOT of field trips to community events (living history museums, "regular" museums, state parks, hikes, etc etc etc). We also are VERY active in Scouts. That lends yet another dimension to his education. The Core Curriculum series (What your X grader needs to know) is just to make sure I don't MISS anything important, lol.

For math, we use a lot of hands on stuff. Manipulatives, games, daily life. I HAVE found it necessary to supplement this, though, or he would take years to learn his basic math facts. At this time, we've found HOMEMADE math worksheets to do the job best. I simply make them in WORD and print them out. This way I can tailor them to his needs. (He's currently working on solidifying his addition facts in his memory, working on memorization of subtraction facts, adding several numbers together such as 3+4+2+5, doing mixed addition and subtraction like 3-1+2-4. We're starting place value and will soon begin two digit addition. He understands the CONCEPTS behind what he is doing well and if he can't remember the answer to an addition or subtraction fact can quickly find it with manipulatives or his fingers.

Whew. Sorry for the VERY disorganized, typo filled book. LOL. I CAN write more coherently when I feel like it, lol. Just didn't take the time as we have a school day in progress (Just watched a video about Teddy Bear factories while I typed this. He's putting in another about how baseball bats, orange juice, and chocolate bars are made. Then, we'll do some reading aloud, do some math worksheets, practice some spelling words-I just started "requiring" some spelling lessons this week to help with reading irregular words. Then, I have a science project planned for later today and we have some plants to pot. Of course, then housework needs done. By then he'll be ready to play!