Homeschoolers

[pigget74]

Looking into homeschooling my kids within the next 2 years. I currently teach 8th grade. When I start homeschooling my kids will be in 7th, 5th, and the little one will be 2. Anyway we need to get some debt taken care of and then I will be able to stay home with the kids. Our school is one of the best schools in our area, but things are changing quickly. Here is my question about this--what curriculum do you use, wht have you tried, and what will you never use again. Thanks.

 

[palmtreegirl]

You should try over at the Families board, lots of homeschoolers over there.

 

[pigget74]

Thanks, I will move it.

 

[horseshowmom]

I strongly recommend A Beka. We started homeschooling in the 4th grade, and DD had been in a private school that used A Beka prior to that. The curriculum tends to be a little more advanced than most public school curriuculums (please note I said "most" not all).

DD graduated last May. She had an ACT of 32 and was admitted into the Early Entry Pharmacy School Honors program. She had a 4.0 GPA last semester. She's tutored many of her friends who are also in the EE program (so far, 20% of the students in her EE class have lost their EE status due to the rigorous coursework).

While she complained many times growing up about how hard the A Beka program was and "why do they make us do all this junk" (as kids will do), she'll tell you in a heartbeat now that it made all the difference in the world. It really prepares you well!

Good luck!

 

[Brier Rose]

We use The Morning Star Academy for my dd. She's in 7th grade.

And we use The Abeka Academy DVD program for my DS. He's K5.

We like both of them, and would use them again.

I'm looking at swaping to this one The North Star Academy for DD next year , just to try something different.

 

[Tiffann4k]

We use Calvert and while I love it, it is really advanced. My children are all testing 1-2 grade levels higher than the grades they are in. ( we have them do the Iowas & achievement tests to make sure they are on track and learning what they should be for their grade level )

I tried one called Compass Learning , it went by another name cant think of it, but anyhow I HATED it. It jumped around too much and was very low( seemed like the first graders were learning prek-K stuff )

We also use Power Glide for foreign language ( spanish)

 

[Pixiedust34]

You should order the Rainbow Resource catalog. It's as big as a phone book and FULL of materials. www.rainbowresource.com

I use a lot of Sonlight (www.sonlight.com). I like it because SL focuses on "real" books instead of textbooks. If you check out the Sonlight forums, things might be choppy there for the next couple of days. They are re-doing their website tomorrow (3/1). If you want to register on the message boards, wait until tomorrow to do so. All of their accounts are being erased tonight while they upgrade the message boards.

 

[FreshTressa]

It so much depends on how structured you want to be.

I after school my kids because they don't get what they need at school.

We love Abeka now that they are older because they do really well with structure.

We loved sonlight too, but it was harder for us to stay on track with that.