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Would you recommend christian light education?? Illuminations??


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I see lots of posts recommending CLE products. I currently have a 4th grader, 2nd grader, 3 year old, and baby due June of this year. I need to streamline my situation. How do the kids do testing wise after using CLE? Any high school grads used it?? Here's my problem: I was sick starting in October from the pregnancy and then when I felt better at Christmas, we went out of town and our house needed to be put back in shape.

 

So, I use Horizons math (which is great), I have First language lessons 2 and writing with ease 2 and sequential spelling, but I have trouble getting these things done, not to mention history, science... So I basically focus on them reading a minimum of 45 min per day, doing one math lesson, explode the code online. Should I just start using a CLE program and get the kids stuff done? Then add in fun projects as we can from the Story of the World Activity Guide (which is awesome)? Please help streamline this mess for me. I've even thought about illuminations for a streamlined process. I like chronological history but love sonlight telling me what to do every day. I think I need some hand holding at this point in the juncture.

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I am a secular homeschooler, so be aware that I write this from that point of view.

 

I use CLE math with my son. I love its clear, streamlined style and tight spiral. The thin, consumable workbooks rock!

 

CLE LA products are VERY religious with a strong Mennonite slant.  This may work for you-awesome! I just want you to be aware.

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Another secular homeschooler here...

 

We gave CLE Math a try this year and have had great success with it (1st and 3rd grader). They are actually retaining what they are learning, feel confident about the subject and they actually enjoy math. 

 

I was so happy with the Math that we now do their LA and Reading programs. I can deal with the religious nature if my kids remember what we are taking the time to do :)

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We like CLE, but it's very religious. We are religious too, but even my DS says that he's a little uncomfortable with so much religion in his grammar. I find it annoying but I can overlook it because I like everything else. It is easy in the math to avoid or ignore the theology. In the reading and grammar, or at least the levels I've seen, it would be extremely difficult to avoid the religious parts without losing too much. 

 

I avoided it for years because I wanted secular materials for their school, but it's so nice and easy that I wish I had gone with it from the start. It makes it easy to cover the basics so that you have time for more electives and interest based studies. 

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Two years ago I was in your position with similar aged children. I also had to streamline and we went with CLE LA, Reading, and Mathematics. I have no regrets! Just feel really blessed that I was put onto it. (I've also tried their Social Studies, Science and Bible. But we didn't keep up with those, I just add in bits of them when it works.)

 

I've had to remain flexible with how much we get done, as it's pretty full on for some of mine. So I have learned to use the CLE curriculum, but not let it rule me with tight schedules etc. We work at about a grade level lower as we hadn't used the program from the beginning and they had missed too much. My new students are using it from the beginning and are closer to being on grade level. I really love how thorough the reading program is. I think it's brilliant 😄

 

We prefer to use SOTW for history as it's a good break from the CLE bookwork. And for science we tend to cover things as the children are interested. I'm still just getting to the point of adding regular science lessons in.

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I've had to do quite a bit of streamlining for our homeschool and have landed with CLE for math and LA. They get done consistently. When I was trying to pull other things together for LA, I was unable to stay consistent. Doing it this way frees me up to add in other things without pressure. (We do a lot of Bravewriter things such as Poetry Teas, Friday freewrites, and word games whenever the mood strikes)

 

My kids also have a reading list with various genres to read through. They narrate each assigned reading. My older 2 do their own science independently (older in Abeka which I don't like, my next oldest does Apologia which I do like).  We read aloud.  I shoot for an hour a day.  Sometimes it's more.  Sometimes it's a little less.

 

My oldest is the only one who has done any testing as we only have to do it every other year starting in 4th.  He took the CAT and was in that 9th stanine for everything.  I was so nervous about testing.  I bought the little test prep book and everything, but once I laid eyes on the actual test. . .well, I wasn't worried anymore.  It was no big deal. Seriously.  The hardest part was filling in the bubbles.  Other tests may be different, but CAT was a breeze after using CLE. (I only test because my state requires it.)

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I'll comment on success after using CLE math. I have a dd, now in 9th grade at a Catholic high school, who used CLE from third grade to seventh, 300 level to mid 800 level light units. Then she moved on to Saxon for algebra in 8th. She did very well on her placement tests for math for the high school, and placed in the honor's math track. We decided not to have her take that route because she never seemed very mathy and took a long time with her CLE lessons--and  in most years I had to do the writing for her. But her geometry teacher thinks we made a mistake and she really should be in honors. She also recently scored at the 92 percentile in math on a nationally-normed standardized test. I always appreciated the thoroughness of CLE math but it took me seeing her transition to high school math and her success there to realize what a solid foundation CLE gave her, remarkable in that she was never a math whiz.

 

In case anyone is interested, I think First Form Latin gave the same solid foundation in Latin. :)

 

FWIW, we tried CLE LA after liking the math so much, but it wasn't a hit.

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