Would Calvert be good for a first timer with a K, 2nd, and 4th grader?

[Julie in Monterey]

My girlfriend is considering "jumping off the homeschooling cliff" after the holidays. She wants a packaged curriculum, something she can use to finish off the kids school year, something easy to jump into, that is thorough and will give them time to adjust to homeschooling.

 

I've always pieced all of my stuff together (I have a 1st and 4th grader). She just isn't comfortable with piecemeal and they are different kids. So....any advice would be helpful. The curriculum will be purchased with charter school funds so it needs to be secular.

 

Wait a minute, is Calvert Christian? If so, what do you recommend that isn't?

 

Thank you in advance for any help!

 

Julie in Monterey

[...................]

But it's such a looooooooooong day.

 

This year we tried Calvert again and I thought the reading comp was good, spelling was good, there was a little dictation and the reading stories themselves were very nice anthologies. The Science was awful, so dry. The math was weird although some like it. The writing was totally atrocioius. It skipped and jumped around with no connections, hardly any instruction.

 

Overall it's a well rounded program with some good subjects.

 

But I would try VERY hard to steer your friend somewhere else. Calvert is extremely teacher intensive, and pretty dry. Her day will last until 4:00 with 3

kids. Just 2 took us from 8:30 till 2:00 and I tweaked and skipped tons of material.

 

I don't know what else to recommend - if she wants a package. Did you try explaining that WTM is like a packFe because it's all explained and laid out?

[SandBeach]

I tried Calvert for K with my 1st, and now I'm still trying to use it for my 3rd. (The same package.) I just don't want to waste my money so I want to use it up, but I find it so time intensive. It is not a program I would recommend. I knew someone who loved it, but she only had one child and had the time to spend with only one.

 

Sandy

[meet me in paris]

K12 is secular, complete, and there were some things I really liked about it. It was a little "schooly" for us, but it's a solid program and I would think it would be a good transition for kids that are used to going to school.

 

Oak Meadow is also complete and secular, but it is not schooly at all, especially below 5th grade. It's very art/nature based, so if they are looking to "de-school" it might be a good thing. (I like Oak Meadow, and I'm switching my 6th grader to it next year.) It's also cheaper than K12 and Calvert.

 

I have a friend who uses Calvert with 3 kids. She loves it and has no interest in using anything else. They do spend a lot of time on school, though. It's very thorough and there's a lot of work each day to complete.

[Lovedtodeath]

I was going to suggest MFW. :o

 

I think curriculumservices.com or core knowledge would be good for a first year.

[TracyR]

My suggestion would be K12. If she is willing to fork over the money for Calvert she can afford to do K12 on her own. I haved used Calvert for grades K, 1,2,3,4,and 5 and let me tell you K12 is far more superior in instruction and is much more pleasant to use( though the Music for K12 in the early grades K-4 is a bit corny).

 

Calvert is dry, and boring. The teacher manuals give you bare bones instructions. The writing is terrible. I am currently doing damage control with my daughter's writing. I will admit Calvert was bareable for K,1and 2. They do use some copy work and dication at those levels. After 2nd grade forget it. The writing jumps all over the place. If your not comfortable with teaching the subject of writing it gives you bare bones nothing to teach in the manual. Now if she has natural writers then it shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

Calvert's math is borning and not well put together from about 3rd grade on. The teachers manuals ( sorry to say) are a waste of perfectly good paper. They give no real instruction. there is some but not enough. I used them briefly when I first started with the Calvert and found they were completely worthless. The early math brings up concepts that you do once and never return to again.

 

The history ( except for 4th) is dry and completely boring. I would see my daughters' eyes glaze over and the sciene was just all over the place. With science one day you talked about this the next you talked about that, and my girls never knew what we were studying. Grammar instruction is HORRIBLE with a capital H. They bring up concepts in the early years but you just kind of nonchalanty talk about it and it means completely nothing to your children. They don't bring up any real grammar instruction until 4th grade and even then its bare bones. My daughter had no clue what a noun, verb was until the last half of last year when I used CLE with her ( long story I had to shortly homeschool on my own last year) and she was a 5th grader.

 

I do like their reading program and their upper level reading selections. We did enjoy those. The Spelling was fine and it worked alright for my daughters. It was easy enough for them to work on their own. Other then that Calvert was VERY teacher intensive. As you can see after using Calvert for many years I am NOT a fan ( I used it through a cyberschool by the way).

 

We are now with K12 cyber and I am extremely happy with K12. It has everything I would picture in a good curriculum.

 

The reading selection is excellent in the early years they have many of the same stories as Sonlight curriculum has. Lots of living books for K to read. They use living books for reading and not textbooks like Calvert does. My 1st grader has read Amelia Bedilia and lots of other books that you would normally take out of the library. The upper levels have great literature selections.

Grammar starts early with K12 , starting in 1st they begin with the concepts of grammar and have easy exercises for nouns, verbs, adjects, ,etc. As the years progress K12 builds on that.

Their phonics is EXCELLENT, its a bit accelerated though. I find its about a year ahead. Kers need to know thier sounds and recognize letters before beginning it otherwise they will struggle ( which Leap Frog videos can cure in 2 weeks). I have found their 1st grade level reading really an equivalent to 2nd grade and so on.

 

The science and history though online to read I find very enjoyable. My daughter likes it when I read them to her. They have workbooks to go with that too should you chose to use them. The only grade level we're not enjoying history so much is 6th grade. They use the Joy Hakim books and I'm not a fan. Plus the work in the workbooks doesn't fit with the books very well either. But we are getting through it. Some like Joy Hakim others don't. I think its just my personality really.

 

Math with K12 is very good. My girls have enjoyed it. They offer many ways to teach the topic, you don't have to do them all. If you have a hands on child they give hands on lessons , if you have a visual child they give lessons for that. It took me a bit to learn that though , here I was doing them all when I started the K12 with my 6yr old last year. LOL. Their math program makes more sense. Though its not perfect, it makes more sense and there is much more direction given to teach the math.

 

Art is excellent. It seems a bit acccelerated but we've enjoyed it. Its mosty theory but they do art projects that go along with the art they have learned.

 

I think that is about it. If she's jumping in the wagon so to speak I highly suggest K12. Its not completely perfect but its pretty darned close. The nice part is this year I have seen actual improvement in my daughters' learning. Which my husband has seen to and he is a fan of K12 and really encourages me to continue to use it. The only thing I would change is that I could use K12 on my own instead. I don't like the extra stuff that I have to do for the cyberschool on top of the K12.

[shinyhappypeople]

She can do K12 for free through one of the state virtual academies, like CAVA (California Virtual Academy).

[courtney.byrum]

My suggestion would be K12. If she is willing to fork over the money for Calvert she can afford to do K12 on her own. I haved used Calvert for grades K, 1,2,3,4,and 5 and let me tell you K12 is far more superior in instruction and is much more pleasant to use( though the Music for K12 in the early grades K-4 is a bit corny).

 

Calvert is dry, and boring. The teacher manuals give you bare bones instructions. The writing is terrible. I am currently doing damage control with my daughter's writing. I will admit Calvert was bareable for K,1and 2. They do use some copy work and dication at those levels. After 2nd grade forget it. The writing jumps all over the place. If your not comfortable with teaching the subject of writing it gives you bare bones nothing to teach in the manual. Now if she has natural writers then it shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

Calvert's math is borning and not well put together from about 3rd grade on. The teachers manuals ( sorry to say) are a waste of perfectly good paper. They give no real instruction. there is some but not enough. I used them briefly when I first started with the Calvert and found they were completely worthless. The early math brings up concepts that you do once and never return to again.

 

The history ( except for 4th) is dry and completely boring. I would see my daughters' eyes glaze over and the sciene was just all over the place. With science one day you talked about this the next you talked about that, and my girls never knew what we were studying. Grammar instruction is HORRIBLE with a capital H. They bring up concepts in the early years but you just kind of nonchalanty talk about it and it means completely nothing to your children. They don't bring up any real grammar instruction until 4th grade and even then its bare bones. My daughter had no clue what a noun, verb was until the last half of last year when I used CLE with her ( long story I had to shortly homeschool on my own last year) and she was a 5th grader.

 

I do like their reading program and their upper level reading selections. We did enjoy those. The Spelling was fine and it worked alright for my daughters. It was easy enough for them to work on their own. Other then that Calvert was VERY teacher intensive. As you can see after using Calvert for many years I am NOT a fan ( I used it through a cyberschool by the way).

 

We are now with K12 cyber and I am extremely happy with K12. It has everything I would picture in a good curriculum.

 

The reading selection is excellent in the early years they have many of the same stories as Sonlight curriculum has. Lots of living books for K to read. They use living books for reading and not textbooks like Calvert does. My 1st grader has read Amelia Bedilia and lots of other books that you would normally take out of the library. The upper levels have great literature selections.

Grammar starts early with K12 , starting in 1st they begin with the concepts of grammar and have easy exercises for nouns, verbs, adjects, ,etc. As the years progress K12 builds on that.

Their phonics is EXCELLENT, its a bit accelerated though. I find its about a year ahead. Kers need to know thier sounds and recognize letters before beginning it otherwise they will struggle ( which Leap Frog videos can cure in 2 weeks). I have found their 1st grade level reading really an equivalent to 2nd grade and so on.

 

The science and history though online to read I find very enjoyable. My daughter likes it when I read them to her. They have workbooks to go with that too should you chose to use them. The only grade level we're not enjoying history so much is 6th grade. They use the Joy Hakim books and I'm not a fan. Plus the work in the workbooks doesn't fit with the books very well either. But we are getting through it. Some like Joy Hakim others don't. I think its just my personality really.

 

Math with K12 is very good. My girls have enjoyed it. They offer many ways to teach the topic, you don't have to do them all. If you have a hands on child they give hands on lessons , if you have a visual child they give lessons for that. It took me a bit to learn that though , here I was doing them all when I started the K12 with my 6yr old last year. LOL. Their math program makes more sense. Though its not perfect, it makes more sense and there is much more direction given to teach the math.

 

Art is excellent. It seems a bit acccelerated but we've enjoyed it. Its mosty theory but they do art projects that go along with the art they have learned.

 

I think that is about it. If she's jumping in the wagon so to speak I highly suggest K12. Its not completely perfect but its pretty darned close. The nice part is this year I have seen actual improvement in my daughters' learning. Which my husband has seen to and he is a fan of K12 and really encourages me to continue to use it. The only thing I would change is that I could use K12 on my own instead. I don't like the extra stuff that I have to do for the cyberschool on top of the K12.

 

Thanks for the positive reveiw of K12 as I am *thinking* of taking the jump into using k12 through CAVA next year for 1st grade. (I also appreciate the review of Calvert, doesn't sound like I would be happy with it)