Recommended Resources

[lexi]

I have some friends who want to begin after schooling. Their kids are K/1st grade age. They asked me to recommend some resources for them.

I would recommend the WTM. But what else?

 

Are there any resources that helped you choose resources or manage your time as you balance school things and after schooling?

 

What curricula lends itself best to after schooling for a mom who doesn't want to do tons of planning? I don't know what subjects they want to focus on but I assume math and reading are on their list.

 

Any advice I can give them?

[Uff Da!]

Carschooling:

Story of the World Audio

Jim Weiss CDs

Audio Books from the library

Any of the "Song School Latin"  "Song School Greek" and so forth if they want a foreign language 

 

Visual Media:

Magic School Bus

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Shakespeare:  The Animated Tales (Comedies only for this age!)

 

 

Math:
Singapore

educationunboxed.com

Life of Fred (if she wants to do math as part of cuddle reading time)

 

Reading:

Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading  and then onto First Language Lessons

Bob Books  

morestarfall.com has phonics instruction, a read along library as well as math games and so forth.  

 

ETA: Because of the school's homework expectations, we try to do things that don't rely on output or we downplay/ completely throw out the output portion of a curriculum.  So for something like Song School Latin, it's OK to do the curriculum orally.

[MBM]

I have some friends who want to begin after schooling. Their kids are K/1st grade age. They asked me to recommend some resources for them.

I would recommend the WTM. But what else?

 

Are there any resources that helped you choose resources or manage your time as you balance school things and after schooling?

 

What curricula lends itself best to after schooling for a mom who doesn't want to do tons of planning? I don't know what subjects they want to focus on but I assume math and reading are on their list.

 

Any advice I can give them?

 

My youngest is a senior in high school, but the academic elementary material I found helpful included:

 

Singapore Math

Beast Academy by AoPS would probably be good, too

 

Core Knowledge Sequence

What Your Xth grader Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch

Realms of Gold series (Core Knowledge) for middle school and junior high

 

The Educated Child by William Bennett, Chester Finn, John Cribb

[SMRB]

For K math afterschooling, we used Singapore Essentials KB (KA was too easy and we did it in Pre-K) and played with Cuisenaire Rods and some Right Start Math games. For reading, depending on the child's ability, we have used I See Sam (free and awesome if they are not reading before K!) and All About Reading and did TONS of read alouds.

 

For 1st grade afterschooling, we continued All About Reading, moved to Singapore Primary Math 1A/1B, and kept up the read alouds. When we had extra time, we played with the Lego Simple Machines homeschooling set for some science and dipped into ancient history with History Odyssey.

 

AAR and Singapore are open and go for before/afterschooling once you go through everything and organize it. We were able to do 15 minutes at the breakfast table every day and 15 minutes after school, which actually allows plenty of math and reading to be done over the year. History Odyssey requires much more work and planning, which is why we only used it occasionally, but DS still loved it when we could fit it in.

 

Our best investments have been the Cuisenaire Rods and Singapore Math, but we have strong readers. AAR was too slow and behind for my son. My daughter (5) is enjoying it much more, because we started it earlier with her.

 

ETA: Another purchase that was awesome for quick math afterschooling in K/1 was this 100 board with tiles from Learning Resources and another activity book I found to use with it. It was great for quick games and getting a great understanding of number relationships. I've never linked before, so hopefully this will work:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Plastic-Hundreds-Board/dp/B00004WKSR/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1411761257&sr=8-3&keywords=100+board

 

http://www.amazon.com/1-100-Activity-Book-Activities-Worksheets/dp/1569119228/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1411761285&sr=8-2&keywords=100+board+activities