Hello. I have been homeschooling my daughter since the middle of her K year. She will be entering 3rd grade this year. During her first grade year we used LifePack, but she was extremely bored with it and we were disappointed. During her 2nd grade year I picked up grade appropriate textbooks and created my own curriculum.
We were going to put our daughter in school this year, but after meeting with the school we quickly changed our mind (to our daughters delight!). I would like to use a curriculum this year, but homeschooling is not popular where I live and I have no idea which curriculums to look at. I haven't found any stores that sell material and I can't explore the materials online.
Suggestions please...
hsfromthestart2011-07-11T21:35:11Z
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If you want a lot of opinions on the options available, try http://www.homeschoolreviews.com It's a site that gives homeschoolers' reviews of various curricula.
It is rather difficult to give specific recommendations without knowing more about what you do (or don't) want in a curriculum. Recently we've used "The Well-Trained Mind" and it's classical education approach, using "Story of the World" for world history, "First Language Lessons" for grammar and such, Saxon for math, lots of nonfiction library books and "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" videos for science, "Spelling Power" for spelling, and a lot of classic children's literature for reading. But I've seen lots of curriculum that looks great. And the library has a lot of great resources that can be used to create your own curriculum (you don't *have* to use textbooks). There are so many methods and options to choose from...
If you still have no idea, try reading "Mary Pride's Complete guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling"--it is a huge book but there are several chapters in it that describe various methods of homeschooling. Read it and see which one sounds like the homeschooling you are imagining, the homeschooling that you think will work for you, and then check out the curriculum options she suggests for that approach.
I totally understand her being bored with LifePacs. I suggest you try My Father's World, or KONOS. Use Learning Language Arts Through Literature for English, Reading, Grammar, etc. Definitely do Annie's Book of Etiquette and Manners, from How Great Thou Art. Apologia Science is very good, and definitely not boring. For math, I suggest Math-U-See, AL Abacus, or Teaching Textbooks. You made a good decision to continue homeschooling and find better curriculum. If you can't go online to buy these, go to a good homeschool conference. You can get these popular curricula there.
We love Christian Light Education for Math and Language Arts. http://www.clp.org/store/by_grade/5 I've used them for 3 years and I'm amazed at what my daughter has learned. The new math concepts are learned so gradually that she never gets frustrated with it. Each day there is a new concept and some review of previous info. I like the real life situations for word problems.
It is a Mennonite/Christian based curriculum, so if you're looking for something secular, it may not be for you. It references country life, helping others, and some scriptures. I've been very pleased with my daughter's progress using this. I'm sure the other subjects are also good, but I haven't had the chance to try them. They used to send a free sample but I don't see that on their website. If you're interested, I can send you a used Math and Lang. Arts workbook to look through.
MEP Math is a free online curriclum that some homeschoolers use. I've heard good things about it. You can print the worksheets out if desired, or kids can just work the problems on paper. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm
I don't know if you're familiar with Charlotte Mason but she uses classical literature for language arts. http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/cm-education_22.html