Which curriculum???

Question

I am a non-denominational Christian in California. I attend a bible chapel, and many of the other mom’s there home school, so I have abundant resources as well as support at my church, but many of the moms use very different curriculums. I was wondering if any of you Christian home schooling moms/dads could recommend a Christian curriculum, and why you like it. I am aware that I should be aware of my child’s learning preference, and all that, but I really just want to know some good curriculums to check out, or any literature or websites about writing your own curriculum & lesson plans! Please share, thanks!

Answer 1

There are many excellent (Christian and secular) curricula available. One look at the Rainbow Resource catalog will tell you that (over 1000 pages of homeschool stuff).

A couple have already been mentioned, Alpha Omega (including Switched-On Schoolhouse), Bob Jones, A Beka, Rod & Staff. There's also Sonlight (good for first-timers, as it has everything laid out for you) and Veritas.

Personally, we follow the classical model as laid out in books like The Well-Trained Mind, so we don't use a single source for our curriculum. I've also looked over books by Rebecca Rupp as well as Cathy Duffy's curriculum reviews.

I would look for a homeschool convention and curriculum fair in your area and look at what the vendors have to offer. Also, talk to the other homeschoolers you know and see if you can look at what they are using and have used - ask them why they chose this program over another.

There is no one curriculum that works for everyone - that's why there's such a variety available. For us, a lot of our choices have been trial and error. The good thing is - there's a HUGE market for used homeschooling supplies.

Best wishes!

Answer 2

Okay, I've been doing this for 9 years and have a 7th and 8th grader, so I'll answer according to what we've used:

For K-4 through second grade we used ABeka, and supplemented with science kits and art and such - fun stuff. What I liked about ABeka was that most young child curricula were preschool stuff, whereas ABeka was real learning. By the end of second grade, though, I didn't care for the math, plus the Bob Jones history and science got better recommendations.

We've been using BJU history and science for years now, and really like it. We got HomeSat, which is the BJUP satellite courses, and use that for history, science, and starting next year we will do literature with it also. We did the BJUP math for awhile but didn't like it. The review was in the TE, not in the workbook, and if you teach from the workbook, like I do, that does NOT work! But that was my fault, not the book's, okay!

Saxon math has a DIVE CD with it with a daily lesson given by a Christian. We did that for a couple of years, but my kids did not like the lessons so I started teaching it and...um...the poor kids got progressively more confused...and last year my poor daughter was getting behind in pre-algebra. We switched to MathUSee, which has about one lesson/wk on DVD. We LOVE this system, and it has turned my kids into math whizzes.

For reading, until my kids started literature in 7th grade [with BJUP], we used various books from BJUP from the Journeyforth series. They are GREAT reading books, and I'd buy one for each kid so they developed a nice library of Christian books. They are cheapest from Rainbow Resource. Incidentally, the 7th and 8th grade lit from BJUP has been WONDERFUL and so interesting for the kids.

For Bible for 6 years I used Praise Hymn Bible, and my kids know TONS more than any high schoolers I know. I've had a hard time finding anything that matched up to it but on a higher level, but I am teaching through the Genesis Explorer's Bible Study and the kids are learning some things. I would not recommend it as it is written, because it ends up being a lot of busy work for kids that already know a lot about the Bible. I've also looked at some of the high school Bible from ABB, and it looks promising.

Answer 3

I have found that Alpha Omega Switched on Schoolhouse to be very beneficial for my son who is easily overstimulated and the computer helps with that. Abeka is very school like, so if you like to do "school at home" this is a good choice. A more eclectic choice is Sonlight. Which I love. It gives a lot of options, tons of literature and a great overall education. I've found the Rainbow Resource Guide a great resource for finding out about different curriculums and whether they are a good fit for us or not.

Answer 4

We tried Abeka and didn't really like it for my 1st grader. For him there was too much repetition, the reading books took too long to advance (we ended up not using them), and there were just too many worksheets. He would start his day filled with dred. Burned out before he lifted the pencil. For me I didn't like that it wasn't easy to skip ahead once something was mastered. Also because the curriculm is used in schools it seemed geared more toward that.

This year we are using 3rd grade Switched on Schoolhouse, which is a computer based program. We went ahead and did 3rd grade which is a year ahead for my son by age, but it seemed the math was really a 1st 2nd level and my son is a strong reader, so we tried it. It has gone pretty well. My son likes the games that help him learn and the little videos that play to talk about a subject. It is also very easy for me to go in and allow him to skip problems if I feel he has mastered something. Things I don't like. The 3rd grade history/social studies was not to my liking. We spent a LOT of time in farming communitites then went on to mining, logging, etc. The questions on the lessons were sometimes very specific, requiring my son to go back and find a single sentence in a 3 page reading assisgnment and infer an answer based on the information given. In some ways I liked the idea of him having to stretch his brain, but I would have preferred it to be on a topic that he really needed to know details about, rather than what month lettuce is harvested on the farm in the story. I also do not like their spelling part of the language arts. It introduces a list along with a reading assignment that includes a few of the words, asks a few questions about the story, and then leaves it to him to learn them. I don't mind that there are all sorts of exercises I cna do with him to work on it, but the program gives a different language arts assignment the next day and the spelling quiz the day after that. Just not enough time in my opinion to do more than crash learn the spellings, and there is no way that you can put off the quiz because it makes you do the lessons in order, so if you postpone you fall behind in laguage arts.

I am most interested now in a Classical Education as outlined in A Well Trained Mind. A friend of mine is using it to teach her 6 kids and she says it is invaluable in teaching many levels at once in addition to giving them a strong education. Since I have a little one that I will be homeschooling soon I think I will try this next year. If you want to look into it here are some websites
http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/index_saved.html
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/

Hope this helps. Good Luck