Looking for a 'classical hs for dummies' curric. :p

[Ashlee]

I use Abeka atm and what I like most about it is the easy to follow lesson plans. I lack the confidence to branch out and explore other curricula especially in the classical realm. I found a lot of the classical curric leaves a lot up to the teacher. Am I wrong in my observation? What curric would you recommend for someone who's fairly new to hsing and needs more step by step guidance as a teacher? TIA

[TheCoffeeChick]

I've always thought that WTM was classical education for dummies. ;) It's simple, easy to follow, and lays everything out for you. The beauty of it is you can pick the portions you wish to do and leave out the things that don't work for your family without tweaking an expensive box curriculum. Sorry that probably wasn't much help.

[Alison in KY]

Calvert?

[Aludlam]

Are you looking for a block schedule, a loose schedule, boxed curriculum, Christian, every subject scheduled, etc, etc, etc?

[dsmama]

Have you looked at Heart of Dakota or My Father's World?

[woolybear]

Easy Classical? http://www.easyclassical.com

[bizzymomof5]

History Odyssey is the WTM already laid out for you right down to things like "after you complete this narration put it behind such and such tab in your binder"

[Ashlee]

Are you looking for a block schedule, a loose schedule, boxed curriculum, Christian, every subject scheduled, etc, etc, etc?

 

I am looking for Christian curriculum, yes. I really don't know about scheduling.. I started out last year with a really strict schedule but relaxed a LOT as the year progressed. I would prefer a boxed curriculum over mixed but I wouldn't rule anything out.

 

Have you looked at Heart of Dakota or My Father's World?

 

I have briefly looked into these.. I have friends who use both. I will add them to my list of currics to look into further. Thanks! :)

 

Btw, I have this years material already so we will be doing Abeka one more year. During that time I really want to research Classical education more so I can make a confident decision next year.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions. :D

[crl]

Have you looked at Heart of Dakota or My Father's World?

 

If you are looking for classical, both of these programs are advertised as a Charlotte Mason approach. They are great programs, and some are using them classically, but I wanted you to be aware of how the author intended them to be used in case you didn't know.

[Kim in Appalachia]

They are classical, and you can get the curriculum and if you want it you can get a schedule. You can also do the history and Bible online.

[catholicmommy]

I've always thought that WTM was classical education for dummies. ;) It's simple, easy to follow, and lays everything out for you. The beauty of it is you can pick the portions you wish to do and leave out the things that don't work for your family without tweaking an expensive box curriculum. Sorry that probably wasn't much help.

 

:iagree::iagree:

[Geek]

I've always thought that WTM was classical education for dummies. ;) It's simple, easy to follow, and lays everything out for you. The beauty of it is you can pick the portions you wish to do and leave out the things that don't work for your family without tweaking an expensive box curriculum. Sorry that probably wasn't much help.

Some of us don't want to spend the entire summer figuring out what to do when, what to buy and what to borrow from the library, how much is enough/too much, etc. In that regard, WTM is definitely NOT classical education for dummies. You are told what resources are best, and a few are available to buy from them, but other than that you're on your own.

 

I can't do it. And I'm no dummy.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Some of us don't want to spend the entire summer figuring out what to do when, what to buy and what to borrow from the library, how much is enough/too much, etc. In that regard, WTM is definitely NOT classical education for dummies. You are told what resources are best, and a few are available to buy from them, but other than that you're on your own.

 

I can't do it. And I'm no dummy.

 

I'm not sure that you necessarily get away from that level of planning with more pre-planned programs though.

 

We did Sonlight Core 5 mostly as scheduled, but that is one that inspires long discussions of what to drop and add, even up to dropping the workbook that acts as the spine for the year. It doesn't take long to find threads about teaching this very religious program secularly or that elementary program with middle school students. Or you get a few weeks into a program and decide you can't stand the history book that it revolves around.

 

I'm not planning out all 36 weeks ahead. What I am doing is saying that we're going back to reading a book or a few pages and summarizing it. I don't have to decide this summer specifically what 40 animals we'll read and narrate about. I just have to write Animal #1. (Actually, I am scheduling two weeks each for a set of One Small Square books. But if that doesn't work, then it's back to "what animal shall we read about today?"

 

If my son needs to stay with non-chapter books a while longer, then that is what we use and apply the read-narrate model to. If he moves along to chapter books, then great, we'll use those instead. But I won't feel like I have to rewrite the whole schedule or have binders full of blank activity sheets that were keyed to specific readings that we ended up not doing.

 

Is it for dummies? Don't know. I just don't think that buying a packaged curriculum is always a relief. (And I don't really think that there are many parents on this board who really are dummies.)

[TheCoffeeChick]

Some of us don't want to spend the entire summer figuring out what to do when, what to buy and what to borrow from the library, how much is enough/too much, etc. In that regard, WTM is definitely NOT classical education for dummies. You are told what resources are best, and a few are available to buy from them, but other than that you're on your own.

 

I can't do it. And I'm no dummy.

 

:blush: I didn't mean to offend anyone and I certainly wasn't calling anyone a dummy, I appolgize if it came across that way. All I meant was I thought WTM was about as simple as I can find for my needs. I'd love to have a boxed curriculum that would work for us, but everytime I look at any of them there are many things I'd need to tweak for it to fit for us, making it more work than just following Susan's recommendations in WTM.

:leaving:

[mindypickens]

You may want to look at www.ClassicalConversations.com . We are doing it this year and are really excited about it. Much of the work has been pre done (timeline, history sentances, grammar, etc) and you get together with your classical Conversations community once a week for "class" where the tutor of your childs class (who is another parent, or yourself if you're interested) models how to teach the information the rest of the week. Also there are art projects and science projects every week so you don't have to come up with these things yourself. They also have a lot of resources you can buy. There are not active communities everywhere in the U.S. but its growing really rapidly so hopefully there's one near you.

[Splash]

history odyssey

[Geek]

:blush: I didn't mean to offend anyone and I certainly wasn't calling anyone a dummy, I appolgize if it came across that way. All I meant was I thought WTM was about as simple as I can find for my needs. I'd love to have a boxed curriculum that would work for us, but everytime I look at any of them there are many things I'd need to tweak for it to fit for us, making it more work than just following Susan's recommendations in WTM.

:leaving:

Oh, goodness, Jessica. It's my turn to apologize! I re-read what I wrote and it does sound like I was offended. Really, though, I was just stating facts as I see them.

 

 

I just don't think that buying a packaged curriculum is always a relief.

Do you mean Sonlight? I honestly don't think of SL as prepackaged. It never was for me and I own five cores. I always always always had to find my own way because I felt like I was drowning with their schedule and all those books.

 

I'd really like nothing more than to order from Calvert. Maybe it's just burnout talking.

[cbollin]

During that time I really want to research Classical education more so I can make a confident decision next year.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions. :D

 

My Father's World (MFW) is classical approach with a CM influence.

 

Since you are researching more in Classical education ideas, you might enjoy as one part of that to listen to MFW"s workshop on classical education in the 21st century.

 

you can get ordering info here and I copied the title and description below

http://mfwbooks.com/workshops.htm

What Should 21st Century Christians Be Teaching Their Children?

Classical education is often defined by what was taught to children long ago. Should we not rather ask the question: What did classical tutors intend students to know once they were educated? Five key questions help us interpret what these tutors would teach our children today if they were in our homes, in our culture, with our language, and with 21st century knowledge.

 

 

***

-crystal

[Smithie]

OP, you need to cultivate some intellectual arrogance.

 

No, seriously.

 

No, SERIOUSLY.

 

If you've read the WTM, you are already leaps and bounds ahead of, like, 95% of parents in this country who have never dreamed of putting that amount of thought into what their children need to learn and how they should learn it. Enjoy this year with Abeka, and when next year comes, see if you're not ready to select texts based on what you know about your kids, and have the best year to date because the resident expert is finally making the choices. You're better qualified than anyone else in the universe to decide what is going to work best for your particular kids. What's more, you know how to present concepts to them better than any scripted lesson.

 

In short, you rock. The more you trust yourself, the better your kids will fare.

[Hedgehogs4]

I use Abeka atm and what I like most about it is the easy to follow lesson plans. I lack the confidence to branch out and explore other curricula especially in the classical realm. I found a lot of the classical curric leaves a lot up to the teacher. Am I wrong in my observation? What curric would you recommend for someone who's fairly new to hsing and needs more step by step guidance as a teacher? TIA

 

Classical Conversations is pretty much plug and play.

[TheCoffeeChick]

Oh, goodness, Jessica. It's my turn to apologize! I re-read what I wrote and it does sound like I was offended. Really, though, I was just stating facts as I see them.

 

No worries Natalie! I didn't want anyone to feel like I was calling them a dummy though!! :tongue_smilie: It's hard to get tone through on a message board sometimes. ;)

[campmom]

I just wanted to add that I am glad that Cyrstal clarified that MFW is classical with a mix of CM. The talk that she mentioned about classical education today is great and for someone just wanted to start out in classical education you really should listen to it. It may give you a new perspective on what you would like your children to learn.

Missy

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Do you mean Sonlight? I honestly don't think of SL as prepackaged. It never was for me and I own five cores. I always always always had to find my own way because I felt like I was drowning with their schedule and all those books.

 

I'd really like nothing more than to order from Calvert. Maybe it's just burnout talking.

 

Your point about SL was sort of what I meant, actually. Here it has a schedule with every assignment laid out for you from what pages to read to what questions to ask. I think that it is marketed as pre-packaged, even if that isn't how we deal with it. As much as I enjoyed it (and I really did), I felt like I was still tweaking it a lot.

 

Re-reading through WTM, I found that I kept thinking that it would probably be easier to just do readings and outlines as suggested there, than to put in all the work of trying to either modify an older core for a younger tag along or merge two cores, etc. And when I didn't get around to modifying it to my satisfaction, then I'd tend to just leave it undone.

 

Maybe it's just my confidence returning after a couple years of juggling kids at both ends of elementary school. If I'm free to line out books or entire subjects from the SL schedule, then I'm also able to pick and choose 40 animals to study over 20 weeks of science and then call it good.

 

This year I'm very into not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[TheCoffeeChick]

I'm very into not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

 

:iagree: Love that quote!!

[Faithr]

I just perused this thread quickly but I didn't notice any mention of The Latin Centered Curriculum. It isn't really for dummies but rather it is simplified with a traditional emphasis on languages. WTM and others like it are based more on a neo-classical take on education, usually based on Dorothy L. Sayers essay, Lost Tools of Learning. I found LCC to liberating in its short, sweet to the point advice which zeroes in on a few basic resources.

[Ashlee]

Thank you all soo much. Your suggestion have been very helpful. :001_smile: