best curriculum for 4th/5th grader

[vlgimmelli]

Can anyone share with me what is the best curriculum for a 4th/5th grader? Last school year we used Rod and Staff and at times my son was bored. Just wanted to know if anyone can direct me to a good 4th/5th grade curriculum.

Thanks

Lillian

:001_smile::001_smile:

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Um, you are going to get 50 different recommendations from 50 different people. What are you looking for? What do you want to change about him being bored? I'll throw my standard recommendation out there of Oak Meadow, but there are lot of other great programs out there too!

[Crimson Wife]

I highly recommend reading Cathy Duffy's book 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. She has really good advice on which materials are best suited for which students.

 

TWTM is obviously another great resource for finding curricula.

[NanceXToo]

Um, you are going to get 50 different recommendations from 50 different people. What are you looking for? What do you want to change about him being bored? I'll throw my standard recommendation out there of Oak Meadow, but there are lot of other great programs out there too!

 

And I'll throw in my standard "I second that!" in regard to Oak Meadow :lol:

 

If you click on my blog link in my signature and look to the sidebar to the left, I have a fairly detailed review of Oak Meadow under the "Reviews" section, and under the "Misc." section I have a detailed sample schedule for OMK, OM4, and OM5 showing what a typical day is like. The OM4 link even includes some pictures.

 

We really loved OM4 last year and are looking forward to starting OM5 this year. It's not dry or boring and allows for a decent amount of hands on, creative things, which we really like about it.

[Closeacademy]

You need to figure out what sort of curriculum you want first.

 

Christian, secular, etc.?

 

Classical, Charlotte Mason, Waldorf, unit studies, textbooks, workbooks, living books, etc?

 

do you have visual, hands-on, audio, textbook, etc learners?

 

do you want a script to teach from, or are you creative, or do you want the kids to teach themselves, etc?

 

Once you have an idea of what you are looking for like:

 

family 1

Artistic kids who learn through stories and art, one is a visual learner and the others is hands-on. They hate workbooks.

 

My recommendation--Oak Meadow

 

family 2

My children love to read and we want something that is filled with wonderful afternoons of reading good books.

 

My recommendation--Sonlight, Charlotte Mason, Winter's Promise or any other sort of literature based program.

 

family 3

My kids want their own work to do. We have a busy life and I don't have time to teach for teacher intensive curriculum. We also want it to be Christian and Bible-based.

 

My recommendation--Abeka, Rod and Staff or BJU

 

So you see how it goes. Lots of curriculum out there. Figure out what you want, how your children learn and then go from there. Hope this helps.:001_smile:

[KLA]

The best advice I ever got at the beginning of my journey was to read ABOUT homeschooling in general to nail down your philosophy and get a feel for what you and your family are like. Once you have basically figured out who you are as a homeschooling family, then your curriculum options are narrowed down by 75%. It helped me so much.

 

KLA

[vlgimmelli]

Thank you everyone for the wonderful advice.

Have a great day.

Lillian

[AudreyTN]

The best advice I ever got at the beginning of my journey was to read ABOUT homeschooling in general to nail down your philosophy and get a feel for what you and your family are like. Once you have basically figured out who you are as a homeschooling family, then your curriculum options are narrowed down by 75%. It helped me so much.

 

KLA

 

:iagree: The first thing I did was read WTM and follow her instructions exactly. After that I tweaked and changed as needed.