aprilsblessings
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Posts posted by aprilsblessings
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A program you didn't mention that would give you more a science focus as well as geography, is Galloping the Globe. I found this to be a fun curriculum to do before we started the history cycle. It was easy to adapt for my boys and a lot of fun. We were able to do art projects and cooking when we wanted. They could be involved or quick and simple. I am looking at pulling this out again next year for my youngest who will be in K. I don't know that any of the things you have really fit what you are looking for. With Galloping the Globe you will still need to plan and go find the books but I think it is worth the effort to get the things you are looking for.
Thanks so much for the suggestion I will look into that!
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sorry long
I have been hopping around curriculums this year and haven't really felt that we have found our groove. I like all of the below for different reasons, have them all infront of me :blush: and I am trying to figure out what to use for the rest of this year and going into next. My kids are 6 and 4 1/2 (3 and 1). The 4 1/2 year old is right with the 6 year old just a different math.
I am planning to keep math and language arts its own thing so it does not have to be integrated but could be depending on what is used.
Ok here is what I have in front of me:
HOD LHFHG
HOD BLHFHG
MFW K - just TM
FIAR Vol. 1-3 and Bible Supplement
What I want:
-Read picture books
-Read Chapter books
-Science Info/Topics with Activities
-Bible tie in or add on
-At least 1 craft/week
-Able to add in cooking - doesn't have to be part of the curriculum
I am questioning when we actually want to start focused history. I feel like there are other things (ex. science topics) I would rather have the focus on. Here is what I am thinking regarding the above curriculums and why I can't decide which would fit best into what I am hoping for.
HOD LHFHG
Things that I don't like:
-Read alouds - we are really picky on what we read to the kids and the attitudes of the characters are not what we want read to our kids right now.
-The activities are a lot of just movement/active/dramatic, not really us.
-The focus on history and not much for science topics.
-Bible devotional
-I feel like there isn't much actual sit down and read with the kids time. (a paragraph for history and page for storytime)
Things that I like:
-Bible Memory work.
-Planning is done for me.
HOD BLHFHG We haven't used this yet but looking at the guide.
Things that I don't like:
-History main focus.
-Activities (similiar to reason above with LHFHG)
-No additional picture books or other booklist to add in from.
-Maybe too advanced for my kids?
Things that I like:
-same as LHFHG
-Poetry study
MFW K
Things I don't like:
-seems light for the extras (I wouldn't be using the phonics or math.)
-maybe a little below for my kids
-I feel like I would have to add in a lot
-only really science studied (which I know is what I said I think I want - do you see why I am going crazy!!):001_huh:
-I don't want to use the 1st grade program so then where would I go:confused:
Things I like:
-science topics
-booklist in back
FIAR
Things I don't like:
-having to decide what to do/the layout
-where would I go after using it? I don't know much about BYFIAR
-having to add in too much with already having to pick what to do inorder to acheive what I am looking for
-doesn't really add in more books, just the one main picture book
Things I like:
-picture books
-learning about lots of different topics not having everything tie into history
I have also been looking at the Living Books Curriculum for 1st grade inorder to maybe get the more reading I am looking for. Has anyone had that in their hands and can tell me more of the activities in it?
I know it looks like I am looking for the "perfect" curriculum which of course I am. :tongue_smilie: Really I just need an outsiders perspective. I am trying to plan out not just for tomorrow but for the next couple years. I think all of the above curriculms look great but what would work the best for my family for what I am looking for??? If you have any words of advice I'm :bigear:.
TIA!
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I have all young kids (oldest is just turning 6) so you can take what will help from our schedule.
Here is our daily schedule.
This is pretty much how our weeks look but I have started adding HOD again instead of some of what is on there - always changing it up here...
I was having a hard time fitting in picture books, poetry, ok any book :001_huh: so I had to figure out what would actually get done at our house. Hopefully this will give you some different ideas.
Sorry about all the links but I didn't really want to rewrite it all.:D
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You all are welcome!
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Hi All,
I just wanted to let you know about some free copywork that I put together based on the memory verses in BLHFHG from Heart of Dakota.
You can find the BLHFHG copywork here:
http://www.momentswithapril.com/?p=323
I also have an alphabet copywork book for the little ones and copywork for LHFHG from Heart of Dakota. Here is the link to all the free copywork I have put together so far:
http://www.momentswithapril.com/category/downloads/copywork/
I hope they can be a help in your homeschool. I am having fun putting them together!:D
Blessings,
April
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Hi Katrina,
I have a program called Educational Fontware
http://educationalfontware.com/
I wouldn't mind doing the copywork in another version. What version do you use?
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Hi,
I just wanted to post that I have some free copywork books for K/1st on my website. I made a copywork book for the verses in the Little Hearts for His Glory guide from Heart of Dakota. (Also on Hide 'em in Your Heart CDs). It is zaner bloser handwriting font with outlined letters to copy. I am also going to be putting together another copywork book that will break up the verse into four days where the child will copy it in their handwriting, not by copying over outlines. Here is the link to the copywork page of my website:
www.momentswithapril.com/copywork/
I am also going to work on Heart of Dakota's Beyond Little Hearts verses after I get the second copywork book done for Little Hearts. Feel free to subscribe if you would like updates for those.
Blessings,
April
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Just because there is more than what we were doing before doesn't mean that it is better.
:iagree:
If you have been called to homeschool - DON'T GIVE UP!!! The ladies have had good points about commitment. You will be following through with your commitment and learning to perservere through this tough time.
Whether it be K12 or not - you can only decide for your family and what your family wants and needs - maybe just do the basics for awhile. Reading, writing, math. Get a flow or schedule to your day where you are working with each child for each of these subjects. Then once that is going well add in a spot in your day to add in history or science(as a group, not each individually). Then you can use four days out of the week to switch back and forth between the two. On the fifth day add in art or music.
Another way to get in some drawing and crafting would be to have that be an activity that your children can do in their free time. I don't know how much tv/video games/computer time your dc get but maybe cut back or eliminate it to give them time to pursue something artist or nature study.
I don't have experience with K12 so take this for what it is but I have heard from many that it is A LOT of material to work through with just one student! Re-read your quoted above.:D
The only curriculum that is worthwhile for your family will be the curriculum that gets done! But you do have to do it.:lol: I hope that you have been encouarged to look at your family's needs to make this decision.
:grouphug:
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bumping this for you:D
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I would love to hear too.
:lurk5:
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For my children they learn best using things that are fun. Even things that seems not so fun should be presented in a fun engaging way. We cover Reading/Phonics and Math with traditional style workbooks but for the rest...history, science and so on is covered in unit study format. Five in a Row was perfect for us in the younger years(retention is amazing) and now we use both BYFiar and Konos. Both are wonderful. Both of my girls have loved the things we have done so far.(cow eye dissection, having a fire outside while having activities related to Native American culture)When my dd's see the Konos manual come out they get so excited.
I have read in past threads that children don't have to love school but it sure helps when they are having fun while learning. It makes my job 100x easier and I feel like we are getting somewhere. Nothing worse than trying to teach something and you notice the kids eyes are glazed over in boredom. You can bet when that happens the info is going in one ear and out of the other.
I do however think it also has to do with the parents likes and dislikes. IOW..if Mom loves what she is teaching then so should the kids.
HTH,
Penny
I do want my kids to enjoy learning and have fun in the process of retaining information. We are using FIAR for part of our schooling right now so that is great to hear that kids to remeber the lessons!
Do you also follow a history cycle with the unit studies or do you just hit on the topics within the unit?
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I'll jump in on the repetition bandwagon. I like to take the layering approach to learning. Layer info-read a book,watch a video, go to a museum, memorize a time-line –all about a related topic.
Also, I like memory work. I like skill building, too -we do a lot of that. But I think memory work is an oft-overlooked tool to teaching kids "knowing" in a way that they know what they know. My kids memorize a lot of poetry. Will they remember it all when they are 90? Maybe, my great gram does. And they will have the tropes and lyrical pictures of the poems in their heads for life.
Also, time-lines. Will my kids remember every detail? No. But they'll remember more details than if they didn't do the do the timeline. They are building a grid/ framework to plug info into. My kids can pick out a time in history based on the weaponry because they have a clear time line in their head. All of that to say- skill building is good stuff. Learning to memorize and doing it is one of those skills that will serve your kids very well. They'll know what they know.
And as far as activities being a proof positive teaching tool, I think it really depends on the kid. My 11 ds is NOT an activity guy (believe me, I've tried). Give him a book or CD and he'll get it - can probably tell you verbatim, with quotes, what the thing is about. Give him an activity and he'll get frustrated and throw things to the floor.
Also, I've been interested in a lot of things but my ability to retain isn't based on my interest alone. I have to make an effort to understand it and process it. I'm a random/global thinker so I get the big picture, but details (unless I get focused and intentionally specific) aren't my forte. My dh, a logical sequential thinker gets details ad nauseum. So, I don't think ability to learn and understand is based on interest alone. It depends on the type of learning/thinker/processor your kid is.
I used to think that learning had to be "fun" for my kids because I found school very boring (could have been due to an processing disorder- I really couldn't hear most of what was going on). We have a lot of fun, but some things are just hard work. Grammar is, for the most part, not really "fun.†Latin, same thing. That's o.k. Some things are not fun, but the benefit of knowing them brings about circumstances and opportunities that not knowing them wont. Like I said, we do a lot of "fun" things but we also talk to our kids about the value of hard work and do some things that they don't consider fun (my ds 11 hates to garden, but this year in Lego League the theme is "food." He now sees the value of organic, healthy food in a way that he didn’t before even if he still doesn't think that gardening is "fun.")
Your kids can be engaged and learning and focused and not necessarily thinking they are having "fun" at the same time. It's not a one or the other thing. We talk to our kids about this, teaching them about the value of work and engaged, focused energy so that they learn what their part in the educational process is.
This is a long winded answer to your simple question: What curriculums work best? The ones that you will use with intentionality, the ones that fit your educational pedagogy; the ones that train your child's character (rather than cater to their character) building on their strengths, and shoring up their weaknesses, and the ones that build your child's intellect.
Wow! I will be re-reading this and printing it out. Thank you for the insight! Now to figure out what my educational pedagogy/philosophy is.....I like aspects from all the methods.:lol:
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Thank you everyone! This really gives me a better idea about how to view curriculum and the part I play as teacher.:D Lots of great ideas to help retention too.
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We are using Phonics Pathways and we do not do any of the writing. I think you can say there is no writing. The writing is "copy a few of the words daily".:001_smile:
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At first it was fun to bounce around and try out all the different colorful curriculum choices. I'm at the point now where I'm like, okay, I'm done bouncing around. Let's find a fit already.
I felt the same way!!! I "think":001_huh: I am good for the moment (maybe not math) until next year. I am already thinking about next year because I don't want to do this bouncing again!
I'm just glad that I am not the only one.:lol:
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It sounds like you have gotten some answers but I thought I would let you know what is going on with my 5.5 year old.
Before we started I had to look up what the word phonics meant:tongue_smilie:, yes really. I researched like crazy and ended up with oodles of phonics curriculums. After trying a few I just had my kids start sounding out CVC words. (They had learned their letter sounds through The Letter Factory DVD.) I thought why do we need to go over the same vowels with each individual consonant - boring and slow! Isn't the point to be reading??
Well..... I understand a little more that the consonant vowel process does have a point. It helps them to read the word faster (for lack of a better way to say it). They don't have to sound out each individual sound. Now I am using Phonics Pathways and telling myself to trust the process.
All that to be said I would suggest working with the blends of sa, se, si, so, su, etc. go through each letter. Then add in sh, ch, th, etc. You can also keep the reading practice going but the drill/review of the individual groups will help to make the reading go better as well.
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I don't know about specific curriculum but things that I find help retention are
1. If they *care* to know they figure out how to remember. If they don't care, it's an uphill battle.
2. Review, Review, Review
3. Interacting with the material: narrating, outlining, etc. The harder they have to think about what they read in order to respond, the better. Comprehension questions don't require much thinking especially if you can just skim the text and pick the answer out without much thought. Narrating is much better. Summarizing or outlining where the student has to pick out the main idea is even better, imo.
4. Discussion w/ Mom or others. I guess that's a form of interacting.
This is VERY helpful, thank you! I think I like things listed.:D
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I know it's not the answer you want to hear, but I think it's really more about the time you, as a teacher, put into your kids, checking that they really know and understand, be it through narrations, tests, hands-on activities, or whatever. The curriculum is a tool for doing that - some tools are better for the job of teaching certain kids than others perhaps - but I think that time put and that real ongoing assessment is probably the most important piece.
No, no this is great! I want to be completely involved. I guess I have to decide which topics (in subjects other than the core subjects) I want to teach and at what age. Then I can make sure they are retaining it.
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I was just wondering if certain curriculums help children retain the information better than others. I know that it probably depends on learning styles but many curriculums claim to have aspects that target each learning style.
So does reading living books with narration really impact the information? Hands-on projects that tie into the lessons? Unit studies?
We are just getting started and I have found myself wanting to use something that my kids actually learn from and not just fill in the "homeschooling" time.
I believe they will learn things with all of the curriculums but I was interested in personal experience of some of you who have homeschooled quite a few years and how the information ends up sticking. KWIM?
Feel free to name drop your favorite curriculum that has worked for your family!:lol:
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I was wondering why you are choosing not to follow OFE? I have looked at AO and OFE for the future and was curious about your possible change.:)
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I just purchased and started using Elemental history and this is only the first week of using it but so far we really like it. I LOVE the layout!
We used part of Little Hearts a few times the past year and a half and I just couldn't get into the activities or the very brief readings. My kids are use to sitting for longer books and numerous in one setting. The elemental history activities are a really nice add in and fun for my kids ages.
I started in Week 6 so that it lined up with Thanksgiving and there is no problem starting there. There are some resources but you could look at the library instead of purchasing them.
Best of all it is only $15 for the TM and student pages - and instantly in your hands if you choose the ebook!:D
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Hi April,
The first time we rowed my dd was 4 yo. We usually only rowed a book 2-3 days and did only the very simple lessons. The next time around we rowed 3-4 days on average and did lessons that were a little more complicated and added a page or 2 out of a book like How People LIve. The 3rd (and some of the 2nd) rowings I added 32 page related topic specific books for science and geography when I have them. I also included hand writing of copy work related to the topics covered and just all around dove deeper. It really isn't hard to do. Not all of the books will we row 3 times as they don't interest us as much, or I feel we have covered the lessons well enough. Our rowings now last on average of 4-5 days and sometimes we expand the topics and go for 2 weeks. We also do random printouts from HSS as there is interest and add lesson expanders such as the projects listed in the FIAR archives and others. If I did FIAR only conversationally, and stuck with just the manual then I couldn't row 3 times.
I get it now - thanks for explaining!!:lol:
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I am trying to put together a plan for my k-er to start Jan. 3. We are deschooling until then as I just pulled him from school :001_huh:
Do you think it is possible to follow the history program of Heart of Dakota without the rest of the currculum? I was homeschooled myself with mostly Abeka S-Mom threw other curricula in as well. So I think I can piece something together. Is there another history program you could reccomend? He is a workbooky kid but likes to be read to, too.
Yes, you definitely could use HOD Little Hearts for His Glory and just use the history. The phonics is pretty much just a reminder box and the math has an activity that goes along with the singapore lesson. You can use the math activity if you want to but that would just add to your own math program. The fine motor skills is handwriting and a fine motor skills workbook. You may like these if your son likes workbooks.
All that to be said we didn't end up liking the LHFHG layout. My kids enjoyed it but it was lacking in reading for us. The actual history readings are only about a page or two at the most and that is towards the middle to end when you are reading from History Stories for Children.(They do have some books to add in for picture books but we found we wanted more to read for science verses history.) When it is from the Family Time Bible it was only about paragraph. The storytime books were a chapter but there again my son was just getting into the story when we would stop. The science is also only a blip of information with regards to reading a book.
There are activities too for science and history. I found that we were skipping a lot of the activities because we are more of a results activity family (ex. Today we made an owl craft.). We like to have something to show for our work not just acting out activities. I hope that makes sense.
I LOVE the idea of HOD and may look at it again when we are ready for the Bigger Hearts program. Hopefully this helps you to know if it is what you are looking for. You may love what we didn't about HOD based on what your child enjoys.
Another idea if you are looking for more reading of picture books the Beautiful Feet Early American History has really nice books. They also have a study guide that schedules out the books but you could easily just read them. We have the books and the study guide but so far we have just read Columbus when it was Columbus day.
We are using Five In A Row for parts while I wait to receive My Father's World K in the mail to use the science and bible topics. I have had a little bit of a hard time choosing "one" curriculum to use.:tongue_smilie:
I hope this helps!
Also, have you seen the first week for HOD LHFHG? That is a very good indication of how the rest of the year is.
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How are the maps? I'm looking for some good maps to go with WP HIH.
Thanks,
Linda<><
Total there are 53 maps with about 22 different regions (ex. US, Europe, Australia, Pilgrims, China, Paul's Journeys, etc.)
They have quite a few of Europe and the US, some in color labeled and some that you can label and color. There are also quite a few biblical maps.
I hope this helps!:)
Ok, here's what I want...suggestions? long
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
Do you know if Galloping the Globe is a lot different from Expedition Earth from Confessions of a Homeschooler? I have that too.:blushing: