Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Just wondering. I'm thinking of doing this and I'd appreciate any helpful advice or tips from someone who has done it. Thanks to all who reply. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkacademy Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I have about a billion ideas but never tried that before lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearWallowSchool Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 No, I have not. p.s. I'm just responding to any and all threads that I possibly can in order to sell at the swap board!!! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 LOL well thanks for the bump then I guess. ;) :D hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkacademy Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 No, I have not. p.s. I'm just responding to any and all threads that I possibly can in order to sell at the swap board!!! :lol: So how long have you homeschooled? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearWallowSchool Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 So how long have you homeschooled? Well, I'm ashamed to say this, but I guess I haven't technically began. I still have two preschoolers!!! :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearWallowSchool Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 However, I am a devoted lurker! :001_smile: P.S. So sorry, hijack over! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich with Kids Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 There is someone here that has a phonics program. I am pretty sure it's free. I thought I had it in my favorites, but I can't find it. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whereneverever Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I thought someone on here had a history curriculum? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
specialmama Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I thought someone on here had a history curriculum? Umm... SWB? :lol::lol::lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkacademy Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I thought someone on here had a history curriculum? Yeah Jen I think she is on Winter promise too her site is Guest Hollow and she is wonderful. Love her site she has even helped develop new products with Winter promise. She is a wonderful person and offers her stuff for free to homeschoolers and is just really great in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Umm... SWB? :lol::lol::lol: LOL :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Honestly, I don't even know if it would be totally doable for me. I really just wanted to kind of weigh the pros and cons of it. It wouldn't have even entered my mind truth be told except for one of the moms in the co-op I'm teaching suggested it. At first I laughed at the idea but then I thought, "why not?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Ibbeygirl, I've thought about writing curriculum also, but it will have to wait until I am no longer teaching my kids at home. I just don't know where I would find the time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Ibbeygirl, I've thought about writing curriculum also, but it will have to wait until I am no longer teaching my kids at home. I just don't know where I would find the time! That's a big part of it for me too. I'm too busy homeschooling! :) hehe And on top of that, my son is severely disabled and requires a great deal of care. Tbh though I've already written quite a bit of the lessons, but since it's for a music class I don't know if it would really fly anyway without like an accompanying DVD or something. I just know how difficult it was for me to find a single resource for my guitar co-op that had what I wanted content-wise. I really wanted something meaty, but geared towards children since that is who I am teaching; comprehensive but easy to understand. I wound up writing a lot of the lessons myself, getting bits and pieces of information off of the internet and assembling it into a lesson etc. I put so much work into getting the course to be what I wanted it to be for my class that I thought, "shoot, maybe I should write my own." But then it would still need to be taught by someone who knows how to play the guitar so.... :confused1: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luanne Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 ... but I have considered doing this. My first thought was to do this for my grandchildren (obviously not born yet) since my daughter really wants to homeschool her children when she gets there. I don't even know where to begin though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 (edited) When I taught full time, I was on a statewide committee of 36 teachers to develop a new version of Social Studies (textbook) curriculum for K-3 grades. The CA State Deptartment of Education chose 9 teachers to be on the final committee. I was nominated by my district and won county honors but lost in the regional finals to a nice colleague. It was fun to learn the ropes and discover how the publishing process works for textbooks. At the same time, I lost my taste for going on to statewide committees due to the politics involved and it boiled down to being a token in the system. Disillusioning. I knew of 2 colleagues at my K-8 Charter School who worked p/t for Teacher Created Materials (now called Teacher Created Resources) and had quite a few books published. Here are the guidelines for submission: http://www.teachercreated.com/contact/submissions.php There was a lot of work to develop their unit and lesson plans -- only to get change in return for one book sold. I think personally it is best if you have something UNIQUE to offer -- that has not been heard/seen/taught before -- then yes, go ahead and publish. I prefer conferences where I can pay to go see the expert discuss their technique and get the "binder" full of ideas right then and there. You'd be amazed at how many ideas are out there (repackaged) based on OLD lesson plans. Even in the Homeschool community -- I see topics and ideas from my teaching days and college training at homeschool book fairs. Nothing new under the sun. Many school districts now are arming themselves from teachers profiting off publishing and demanding publishing rights belong to the school district. :confused: When I taught full time, I freely shared what I had (lesson plans & units) with other teachers and let them xerox with no money exchanged. I felt it was good to share resources and ideas to make learning come alive. I gave away so much!! When I stopped teaching, I gave it all away. Ironically, years later, when I started homeschooling, I realized... nutz... I could use that stuff! LOL Aw well. What goes around -- comes around. Son and I did fine our first year of hsing. Edited February 3, 2010 by tex-mex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris's girl Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I have typed out what we did this year for history and posted it on a forum with my friends on it. It was just dates and what books we used for those dates, but it's worked excellently for us this year! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I wrote out one cycle of history (4 years) that is very similar to TOG. But many of the texts are out of print because they were the ones I liked the best. So it wouldn't fly to actually publish it. I'm glad that I have two kids to go through it though so it makes it a bit worthwhile. BTW - I started it before SOTW even came out so it was at a time when there weren't the options available that are out there now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 However, I am a devoted lurker! :001_smile: P.S. So sorry, hijack over! Bless you for lurking! That is neat! :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 (edited) Honestly, I don't even know if it would be totally doable for me. I really just wanted to kind of weigh the pros and cons of it. It wouldn't have even entered my mind truth be told except for one of the moms in the co-op I'm teaching suggested it. At first I laughed at the idea but then I thought, "why not?" Why not upload it to Donna Young for a basic outline (not the whole thing) and link to your site if people want to buy your unit plan? Donna Young has tons of co-op lesson plans: http://donnayoung.org/apologia/schedule.htm#physical-2nd -- OR -- Try teaching it at a local hs support group mini conference and see how it goes over? Get your feet wet! Edited February 3, 2010 by tex-mex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Why not upload it to Donna Young for a basic outline (not the whole thing) and link to your site if people want to buy your unit plan? Donna Young has tons of co-op lesson plans: http://donnayoung.org/apologia/schedule.htm#physical-2nd -- OR -- Try teaching it at a local hs support group mini conference and see how it goes over? Get your feet wet! Thanks Tex Mex and you other gals for your comments. :) I don't have a website. I actually just posted up this thread to kind of help me think through the process and see if it is something that is even worthwhile for me to do. Thank you for sharing your experiences btw. :) I am just teaching students out of my house at this point and have gathered/created this curriculum to use with my students. I've also recorded the audio tracks to accompany the lessons for the students. I wouldn't even know how to begin to upload something like that. lol I think I'm a little technologically challenged. I really was just hoping to get some feedback from people who have been there/done that to get an idea if it is something that is even worth my investing the time and energy into doing. As you said, there is nothing new under the sun and my curriculum, although I couldn't find another one like it when I was trying to choose materials for my class, is still just a rehashing of the same old topics. I mean, it's music afterall, there's nothing really new there. Theory is still the same today as it was 100 years ago. So maybe it's not worth the time. I was hoping I could just throw the question out there and hear what other people's experiences were. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Thank you for sharing your experiences btw. :) I am just teaching students out of my house at this point and have gathered/created this curriculum to use with my students. I've also recorded the audio tracks to accompany the lessons for the students. I wouldn't even know how to begin to upload something like that. lol I think I'm a little technologically challenged. I really was just hoping to get some feedback from people who have been there/done that to get an idea if it is something that is even worth my investing the time and energy into doing. As you said, there is nothing new under the sun and my curriculum, although I couldn't find another one like it when I was trying to choose materials for my class, is still just a rehashing of the same old topics. I mean, it's music afterall, there's nothing really new there. Theory is still the same today as it was 100 years ago. So maybe it's not worth the time. I was hoping I could just throw the question out there and hear what other people's experiences were. :) Who knows? People will pay good money for music lessons! If you teach it a novel way like theory... I can see this being a hit. Hire a college student (they work for cheap) who does graphic design or computer science to develop a website for the music downloads. Sell the lessons in .pdf format too. Think it over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted February 3, 2010 Author Share Posted February 3, 2010 Who knows? People will pay good money for music lessons! If you teach it a novel way like theory... I can see this being a hit. Hire a college student (they work for cheap) who does graphic design or computer science to develop a website for the music downloads. Sell the lessons in .pdf format too. Think it over. LOL Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. :) The part I bolded cracked me up. hehe It made me think of how I always have to always ask my dd 12 to show me how something on my cell phone works. hehe She always knows of course! What is it with kids and technology? What I have in my curriculum like I said is nothing really new, but I looked a lot of places when I was in the research stages of starting this co-op and after looking over lots and lots of beginner courses I just couldn't find one single course that I would use. I kept thinking how I wish I could just pick and choose from them and make my own which is kind of what I did. I knew in my mind that I wanted a course that was geared toward children (straight forward and easy to understand) but that would also be meaty enough for an adult as well (one of the moms wanted to take the class also). I wanted something that would take them from an absolute beginner and leave them with a solid foundation in the basics that would allow them to go to any music store or download a piece of music online and be able to play it (within their skill level of course). I couldn't find a single course that covered all of the topics that I wanted to cover so I just pieced it together myself and wrote some of my own lessons and recorded the tracks for all of them. That's basically in a nutshell what it is. I don't know if it's novel or not, I just couldn't find a course that fit what I wanted to do for my co-op so I put it together myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I used to teach local grade school science classes, and sold the curriculum I wrote for that very informally, by word-of-mouth. It looked like it might take off, so I began investigating which included talking to several on this board who had written curriculum sold as a side business (including Ria of My World Science) and a friend who is a well-known curriculum author, speaks at conferences, and pretty much supports her family by it. I have another aquaintance who did this on the side for many years, and now does it full-time because her children have all graduated. What I heard is that it's a lot of work, and that most don't make much money for the amount of effort it is. Most who were doing it part-time said they did it for fun more than money. My friend who is well-known makes about half her money speaking and teaching local and online classes, and the other half selling her curriculum and various supplies (which her husband pretty much runs because he retired early). She has one graduated, and one teenager, so her homeschooling days look very different than mine did at the time. They are NOT raking in the money, but are doing OK. The second author didn't start the business beyond local people until her youngest was twelve, and didn't really push it to the next level until they were all graduated. So I decided to drop it for now, and have focused on teaching at local co-ops where we are already involved. I don't want a business to affect the quality of my homeschooling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Just wondering. I'm thinking of doing this and I'd appreciate any helpful advice or tips from someone who has done it. Thanks to all who reply. :) Ria put together a science program, but I don't think that she's selling it anymore. You could probably find some of her posts about it, although they may have been on the old board. Harmonyartmom put together the Harmony Fine Arts program, which is sold at least through Rainbow Resource. She has also been putting out some nice looking ebooks for nature study. Plaid Dad has some experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekarl2 Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 My mom wrote a grammar curriculum for her PS classroom. We've sold it to homeschoolers, private schools, co-ops since 1996. She and I run the company whose international headquarters is my basement! It's an AMAZING journey, but it's been the biggest blessing ever for our family. It allows me to stay home with my babies and provides an income to my mother, me, and my sister. It was a very small side business until 2005 when my mom quit teaching full time and had more time to devote. Never underestimate the need or market for what you've come up with. The first time mom went to a convention she thought she'd find 5 other programs just like it. That wasn't the case. What mom wrote and designed is very different and in demand (thank goodness!) We've certainly made some rookie errors that we've learned from, but our business continues to grow and prosper, so we're doing something right! We joke that we're running the company by the seat of our pants, but it's gotten us this far! I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Blessings, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 I think Elizabeth has the Phonics program. Is it ElizabethB???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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