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I bit the bullet
Our 4 year old, Caleb is supposed to be entering Pre-school this fall, his birthday is only weeks away from the public school's "cut-off" date. He turns 5 in October, and would be one of the oldest in his class. But since we're homeschooling, we're going to be starting him in Kindergarten this fall instead. He is already reading 3 and 4 letter words and from my research, is waaay past preschool curriculum. He would have to be learning below his level for another year and a half before he could be challenged in that area. This is one of the main contributing factors for us deciding on homeschool. According to the public school in our town, they won't let him test into Kindergarten and aren't willing to work with us at all until he is of the age of compulsory attendance. Yeah, can you believe it!
Soooo.....
I bit the bullet and ordered my first official homeschooling curriculum. After extensive research I just ordered:
Horizons: Kindergarten Math
Horizons: P.E.
Horizons: Health
Explode the Code books 1& 2
I'm waiting for the NICHE conference to decide on our science, history/social studies and bible curriculum. I'm excited to page through curriculum there, but didn't want the daunting task of finding all subjects while I'm there. I've really utilized Kathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum
as well as her website to decide which Math and Phonics curricula we'll use. Another great review site is homeschoolreviews.com.
I have a few items on our "possible curriculum" list. I'd love any feedback!
Science:
Simple and Fun Science Simplified, K-2
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Hi, Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment. Regarding what to pick I don't recommend anything to anyone blindly. IMO the most important thing is knowing your child and a bit of their learning style and preferences for methods before shopping or even asking advice.
ReplyDeleteIf a child doesn't learn well at age 4/5 with workbooks I'd avoid anything workbook based. Et cetera.
The best way to use guides like Duffy's is to know your child, read what she says about a product, figure out the method or materials and see if it matches.
There is a test for prek and for kids already reading in Discover Your Child's Learning Style. Also to go WITH THAT is the issue of right brain/left brain or if you prefer the terms visual-spatial learner vs concrete sequential. Take a peek at the side by side list here --- (scroll down a bit)
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm
Not all children are way to one side or the other but both of mine are "very" to one side and they are opposite of each other. Thus what one thrives with the other won't learn with.
You will find HSers loving one certain thing or another but it just might not fit with your kids. Mine both hated the Nature readers for example but I can't tell you how many people rave about them. Sigh.
HTH
I would also suggest for your first year being willing to try things and then ditch them if they don't work for you. We have tried a lot of things that didn't end up working for us, but I have tried to only invest large amounts of $$ in things I was fairly confident would be a good fit for our family...and luckily the resale market for homeschool items is great, so even if you do buy things at a higher cost, you can always resell and recoup at least some of your losses. What your TEACHING style is may be just as important as your child's learning style, so keep that in mind as well. Even if your kid loves a particular curriculum if you can't stand it, it will be bad news! ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe are considering Mystery of History for this fall too. It really isn't exactly what I am looking for...but I have done a ton of research and I don't think I AM going to find exacty what I am looking for, so I will either have to "settle" or do my best to adapt something that is out there.
An out of the box suggestion for science would be for you to check out "Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding", which is what we are using: http://www.pressforlearning.com/.
It is not specifically Christian, but is very adaptable (and not too many lessons you would need to change at all). It is NOT textbook style learning, but I am not sure that is really what is best for science anyway. Tony was about to write an entire science curriculum for us to use until we found this book, because he didn't think anything out there was doing a really good job...so this book comes with the high recomendation of someone "in the field" so to speak.
We actually did use a textbook from the same series as "The World God Made" (except I think it was the 2nd grade one) in the fall because our co-op was using it, and it was kind of boring in our familiy's opinion.
For Bible, we really like "Leading Little Ones to God" by Marian Schoolland.
My very favorite preschool overview book after 5 children at that level has become a workbook entitled, "Everywhere We Go" by Rod and Staff Publishers. Alot of active interaction and helps to give a good overview of all skills at this age no matter how yours is learning. Very adaptable, simple enough to start with. I have found my boys and all 2 year olds to be exceptional oral learners to begin those memorization skills. My 2 year old will start this book orally with me in the fall and then be ready to use when he has some writing ability. I like it as a keepsake; an art scrapbbok when they are complete.
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