New to Afterschooling, wondering about School Curric

[Mushy1127]

Hi everyone-

  This is our first year in public school.  I made the decision to send my 6(k) and 8(2) year old to public school following our move to a really really great school district.  We've so far been pretty happy with the school, their class sizes, teachers, etc.  My youngest child has autism (as well as some other comorbids) and having him in school was necessary.  My 8 year old was a terrific homeschooler, a natural learner, and all around great kid, he's extremely intelligent- but he has dyslexia and dysgraphia.  He's so far doing well with the supports in school, but given both of their learning challenges and their being accustomed to working with me (and I am good at keeping things light and fun)... I was thinking it might benefit them both if we reviewed/supplemented the school's curriculum at home.  

  My challenge then is that I can't find ANYTHING online about this.  Am I really the only person on the internet that has wanted to use the school's curriculum as a spine?  I am assuming I am just looking in the wrong places.  Anyone have any advice about this?  If it helps, the children's school uses Harcourt Journeys.  Thanks

 

Michele

[Gil]

Have you contacted the school? What does the school use for Reading? Math? Science? You can buy textbooks online from all sorts of bookstores:

Ebay, Amazon, Abebooks, Alibris all sell textbooks for the K-12 bracket--its just a matter of finding what you need.

 

Ask your kids teachers for home materials. I'm sure there is something that you can use at home. Or else just get the TOC from the front of the book and cover topics as needed.

 

Which grades are you looking for? Some publishers have student eTexts available online for free. Contact the school about getting a password/account to login and access the digital version of your students eTexts.

 

I did a search on Amazon for Journeys and a lot of student texts for 5-20 USD came back.

[SKL]

If you're mainly talking about reading/LA, I've tried that and it was problematic.  The teacher didn't like it when my kid previewed what they were going to do in class.  I was able to find other workbooks that supposedly parelleled the class workbooks, but they really didn't help.  I went back to going over the work they did in class, either before or after they actually did it, and trying to find examples in our free reading / environment to try to drive home the concepts.  We also used some supplemental materials that were not related to the school's reading curriculum.

 

If you're talking about math, there seems to be a lot more supplemental material out there.  My kids are doing Singapore's Math in Focus at school and Amazon.com has tons of supplemental materials that more or less parallel what they are doing in school.  For my challenged learner, this is really helpful.  We also use other review/practice supplements that are not aligned with their math program, to ensure skills are kept fresh.

[displace]

Our PS curriculum was akin to either national security secrets or just very forgetful teachers when I asked about it. I found google more helpful than school websites. If they send worksheets home you may figure out which curriculum they use. But they may still use a different order.

 

If you haven't had a teacher conference yet you could and try to find out then. Especially with LD they may be more open to helping you as you will ultimately be helping them.

[Heathermomster]

When DS sat in the classroom, I had him bring the text books home and ordered them used from Amazon and Alibris.  I also asked a teacher for the ISBN numbers.  DS attended a private school, so the teachers were helpful,

[Caroline]

Have you tried asking about resources instead of curriculum? If I am asked what curriculum I use to teach calculus, my answer is the College Board's curriculum, because I teach a course called AP Calculus AB, and it follows the College Board's curriculum. If I am asked about resources, my answer is Stewart's seventh edition with early transcendentals, some of Foerster's stuff, especially the explorations, and a few things from Larson and Kennedy. Those are the books I use.

 

That is how curriculum is defined--what we are teaching. The books are the resources.

[kiwik]

We don't use worksheets we use multi layered rich learning experiences that allow students in mixed groups to work at their own level.

 

And I go away thinking, well that sounds fun but if you are designing the multi level etc and the only assessment is subjective against the standards and carried out by you HOW AM I TO KNOW YOU ARE TEACHING ANYTHING AT ALL.