What curriculum do you wish worked for you?

[Paintedlady]

I usually know when I see a curriculum if it's my style or not, but sometimes I try the curriculum anyway, hoping I can make it work. I'm not typically successful when I do that, but sometimes I still try. :glare:

 

Currently I'm trying to make Right Start math work for me. I love RS math, love the way it teaches, love the abacus, etc... but the darned pages are so cluttered with words that it makes me crazy! But I'm trying to make it work anyway, b/c my dd seems to like it. I'm a MUS see gal and love love love the simplicity of the pages and that makes it especially hard to look at the RS pages.

 

Curricula I've discarded and never tried b/c I just knew it wouldn't work, but wish it did:

 

Sonlight--the idea of it draws me but the reality is I couldn't stand to read little snippets of a bunch of different books at the same time.

 

Miquon math--my first homeschool purchase ever. Knew in about a nanosecond that I couldn't stand it and prompty sold it. Something about discovering the concepts for oneself made me roll my eyes. Again, loved the idea but just couldn't do it.

 

Anything that is strictly fill in the blank or multiple choice worksheets--I want to love this style because it's easy and it makes me comfortable b/c it's what I grew up with, but I don't believe it promotes higher order thinking so just can't do it.

 

MCT (Michael Thomas Clay)--I went to a local hs convention last week and was excited to see MCT so I could peruse their books in person and see what all the hub-bub was about. While it looks like a nice curriculum and I really love the idea of Socratic discussion, the crazy fonts in the books made me go cross-eyed. I wish they would use a regular font to clean up the pages a little.

 

Anyway, just thinking about what curricula I wish had been my style but finally had to admit just wasn't. What are yours?

[Guest Cindie2dds]

I wish Winter Promise worked for us at the time. I drooled over the catalog and planned out K ~ 8. :glare: A week into it, I boxed it up and sold it. I couldn't return it because it took over 3 months to arrive in the first place.

 

I like the idea of Sonlight, but it would take too much tweaking since I don't care for a quarter of their book selections.

[Night Elf]

Sonlight!! I personally love using a literature based program but it was a flop with my kids. I purchased 4 cores, 2 of them brand new. I was so disappointed that it just didn't work with my kids that I kept trying and trying. DH finally put his foot down and said I couldn't order it ever again. :(

[....]

I hate to say this, but you really have to tweak Sonlight. We only do one Read-Aloud at a time. The Readers (the books they read independently) - they can go off on their own and read and answer the TM questions. But, one book at a time.

 

I know exactly what you're saying.

[elegantlion]

Classical Writing - :glare: We did Aesop and it worked out. I bought Homer thinking we'd have similar success. Nope, by week 5 ds and I were both frustrated. Part of the issue is that it was too big of a leap for his abilities. I listened to SWB's "A Plan for writing" and realized ds was missing a few abilities to make Homer work. I also realized writing didn't have to be so complicated. So I have Homer sitting on my shelf and plan to tweak it to death to use for ds later this year.

[Peela]

Classical Writing. Aesop was great, half of Homer was ok...but it just got too teacher and time intensive after that. We got bogged.

 

Rod and Staff English. It would have been great when we first started homeschooling if we could have jsut followed TWTM recommendations. sigh. Rod and Staff killed my kids' love of English. I often wanted to go back to it, and we did try a few times....but the same thing happened. All enthusiasm for school went way backwards. Too dry for us.

 

Saxon Maths. Again, I wish we could have just stuck with it and it could have worked but my kids hated it with a passion.

[FO4UR]

SWR - the lay out of the curric drives me nuts...the WISE Guide, the TM, the log plus the dc's notebook....too many pieces and THEN it isn't as "all-in-one" as I would like.

 

If I had 3 magical wishes, one would be the perfect spelling/reading/writing curric that took the best of Recipe for Reading, SWR, FLL, and WWE and put it all into one neat package...one TM and one student book.

[kalanamak]

SWR - the lay out of the curric drives me nuts...the WISE Guide, the TM, the log plus the dc's notebook....too many pieces and THEN it isn't as "all-in-one" as I would like.

 

If I had 3 magical wishes, one would be the perfect spelling/reading/writing curric that took the best of Recipe for Reading, SWR, FLL, and WWE and put it all into one neat package...one TM and one student book.

 

 

Make mine a mix of PP, SWR, GWG and WWE.

 

BTW, what are your other two wishes?

 

I regret Miquon not working. I suppose I shouldn't sin my blessings, but kiddo really disliked manipulatives: why fiddle, fiddle, fiddle when you can do it so much faster in your head?

 

Artistic Pursuits: the prints are too small (we got out magnifiers at first) and the projects too vague for my son. I love the mediums she picked, and I often just put them out and let him have at it, but it is time for something more methodical. I just ordered that DVD program people rave over, ugh, that was a chunk of change.

 

AAS, again I sin my blessings, I guess. Kiddo "gets" the rule of the day so easily, and speeds through it all, but it does not stick. He needs more of variety to attend to the spelling. And the magnetic letters were a novelty for the first 2 months, but then became a drag on his speed. I'm hanging on to the older grades in case he hits a spelling ceiling.

[Snowfall]

Spell to Write and Read for us, too. It's only about $100 or so for the phonogram cards, Wise Guide and SWR, but then there's this learning curve, which I don't know that I really mastered, as I was just following the lesson plans at the back of the book. DD hated it, the notebook lines are way, way, way too small for a kid whose fine motor skills aren't far above those of your average 5 or 6yo, and the handwriting directions are way, way, way too abstract for some kids. The whole clock face thing does not work for my daughter.

[emzhengjiu]

My very first purchase and my first wrong purchase was Weaver. I loved the idea of weaving the different subjects into a biblical worldview but hated the amount of time it required of me.

 

Then it was Miquon math. None of us liked it.

 

Sonlight was my next favorite. I love the idea of reading all those wonderful books but realized very soon it wouldn't work for us. Some of those 27 reasons not to buy Sonlight are spot on for us.

 

Lately, I've been enamored of Life of Fred for math. My older daughter loves math so I thought it would be a great fit for her. Thankfully, she and I were able to look through one of the books before I placed an order. She disliked it immediately.

 

On a positive note, Singapore's Discovering Math 2 books arrived yesterday. They look really good. We didn't like NEM very much although it was okay.

[Mejane]

Sonlight. It just didn't work for us, but I got so tired of cobbling together curricula every year!

[Nature]

I love Rod and Staff . . . how detailed and thorough their curriculum is.

[ChristusG]

Oak Meadow. I bought Oak Meadow first grade to use with DD this year. I was all excited, waiting for the UPS guy, etc. When it came and I looked through it, I just knew it wasn't for DD. Oak Meadow is very "go with the flow" and unstructured. DD6 needs something more structured and concrete. *I* wanted to do Oak Meadow myself though LOL! It just looks so neat.

[Guest]

Any!

 

I have a 2E kid, an Aspie who was fairly severely dysgraphic in elementary school years and now continues to have fine motor problems, who has made using any curriculum pretty well impossible. I've put together my own since kindergarten. Now that she's in high school this fall, I have to start using SOME fairly standard things at least in math and science, and I am not looking forward to that. But even with a conventional textbook, we'll still be madly adjusting, reading outside the course of study of the particular books, and who knows what.

[DawnM]

Where do I start????? :D

 

I like Sonlight. My boys don't. We are making it work because we have it, but I would like to sell it and get a more hands on curriculum.

 

Singapore Math worked great through grade 5. Then it didn't. So we have switched. We may switch again next year.

 

TOG: I bought it and it sounded so great. Honestly, it was just too much work for me. We did it for almost a year and then gave up.

 

SWR: Again, way too much work for me but I loved the concept. I wanted something EASY! So, right now we are doing Sequential Spelling. Don't know if it is really doing much for them though.

 

Dawn

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Oak Meadow is very "go with the flow" and unstructured.

 

Oh, I laughed so hard at myself when I read this! :lol:

 

It's amazing how people perceive things so differently. When I got SL's IGs for Core K, it seemed so scattered because not only was there was more than one, there were three (Core, Science, LAs/readers) and I had to add in a math schedule on top off all of it! :svengo:

 

I opened up Oak Meadow and saw that everything was listed for the week to do on my day of choosing (including art and music), all wrapped up in a pretty little spiral bound bow, ah! I thought it was structured. :001_huh:

 

I am so glad there are so many different curricula companies out there, so a quirky Type A, like myself, can find something that fits me and my artsy, twirly fairy girl.

[plain jane]

TOG. It is everything I've wanted in a curriculum for history/lit. :drool5: But we're not Reformed and I'm struggling to find how I can get the most of the program without compromising our family's beliefs. Sigh.

[mazakaal]

When I initially saw the post, all I could think of was Classical Writing. But, as I read through the thread, I found so many others that I tried over the years and had to disgard - Growing With Grammar, Easy Grammar, Singapore Math, Weaver, Latina Christiana. It makes me wonder if part of the reason that homeschooling didn't work out with my oldest is because the poor guy had to be a guinea pig for so many years with so many different programs.

[Medieval Mom]

FLL. I really, really, REALLY wanted this to work. Alas, no. I still have it around just so I can open the book and say, "NO!" again.

 

MCT. The font drives me batty, too. :D Luckily, I found this out before I ordered it :)

 

R&S English. The verdict is still out. I just wish it was available in an editable pdf e-book, so that I could edit out the over-religious lessons and retain the 80% that we like. We're making a go of it so far -- 4 weeks in to R&S English 2. (Really, I think it makes *me* uncomfortable, mainly because I grew up with public school. I'm just not *used* to a grammar text where you fill in the blank, "Jesus _______." My ds doesn't blink! Shrug.)

 

Saxon Math. See FLL.

 

Ray's Arithmetic. Another time, another place, this is what I'd use for math. But I'm just too afraid to "miss out" on something. I'm too new, and too fearful of messing up ds :lol: Otherwise, I'd love to use these great books. We use them now for fun :D

 

Sonlight. Oh! How I wish I could just order SL! Alas, as much as I drool over the catalog, I know me well enough to know that I'd have to tweak it too much to be worth it.

 

:)

Edited August 15, 2010 by Medieval Mom

[DawnM]

I really wish that book had never been written. Seriously, there are crazies in every group. What if the only exposure to a homeschooling was the Duggars? What if someone got the idea that to homeschool you had to have 19 children and that was the only way it was? I am not saying the Duggars are crazy, just that there are so many other homeschooling views out there.

 

I can assure you that most missionaries are nowhere CLOSE to what you read in that book.

 

And yes, I do know....I grew up as a missionary kid in deepest darkest Africa. I would not trade my childhood in Africa for anything.

 

Dawn

 

Sonlight. Oh! How I wish I could just order SL! Our first two years, $$ was an issue. Now, I just can't get over the missionary bias and YE Science. (In-laws are missionaries, and I DON'T want to inspire ds to become one! Imagine Poisonwood Bible.)

 

:)

[Mynyel]

Sonlight - I love the books (and so do the kids) but like the OP, the reading if 3 or 4 books and little at a time over a couple week drives us nuts. We just use the lists and read at will.

 

Apologia (Creature of the 5th & 6th day) - Oh how this looked so wonderful. My daughter read the books but that was it. My son glazed over everytime I pulled it out. I have saved Astronomy and Botany, hoping I can uses it next year for ds8 but we shall see.

 

Saxon (5/4 & up) - I liked the layout and scope of these but it was a fight to get the work done. I wish it could have worked but MUS ended up being a much better fit for us!

 

I am sure there will be more in the future but it hasn't happened yet! :)

[Medieval Mom]

I really wish that book had never been written. Seriously, there are crazies in every group. What if the only exposure to a homeschooling was the Duggars? What if someone got the idea that to homeschool you had to have 19 children and that was the only way it was? I am not saying the Duggars are crazy, just that there are so many other homeschooling views out there.

 

I can assure you that most missionaries are nowhere CLOSE to what you read in that book.

 

And yes, I do know....I grew up as a missionary kid in deepest darkest Africa. I would not trade my childhood in Africa for anything.

 

Dawn

 

My dh is a missionary kid. His family's life was VERY similar to the book, in some ways, much worse. I am not knocking missionaries or families that support missionaries. Nor do I imagine for one second that many missionaries are AT ALL like the one portrayed in that book. But, from what dh and his family has been through, I could never use a program that was missionary-focused. I mean no offense, truly. It just *couldn't* be a good fit for us. :)

[Mom22ns]

We love Sonlight, but as high school approaches, I keep thinking I should switch to TOG. I look and I look, but I just can't see how to make it work for us without SOOO much work it would drive me crazy.

[DawnM]

Well, I admit I took it a little personally. My experience was not always perfect, but I don't think all of that had to do with being an MK, I think it is just life. I think that is true for most MKs, including the Poisonwood Bible kids....if they hadn't had crazy parents on the mission field, they would have had crazy parents in the USA, you know?

 

My parents are missionaries, my grandparents were missionaries and my great grandparents were missionaries. I come from a long line and it is very near and dear to my heart. So I *would* seek out a missions based curriculum.

 

We certainly are shaped by our experiences aren't we?

 

Dawn

 

My dh is a missionary kid. His family's life was VERY similar to the book, in some ways, much worse. I am not knocking missionaries or families that support missionaries. Nor do I imagine for one second that many missionaries are AT ALL like the one portrayed in that book. But, from what dh and his family has been through, I could never use a program that was missionary-focused. I mean no offense, truly. It just *couldn't* be a good fit for us. :)

[Crimson Wife]

The Charlotte Mason approach to LA. I love it in theory but in practice it's been a big flop. :tongue_smilie:

 

The 1962 edition of Voyages in English. Love how it works Catholicism into solid grammar instruction. Too bad that it is so horrendously dull!

 

My DS would probably :001_wub: Miquon but it intimidates me. I looked it over again at the local HS bookstore and I just can't make heads or tails of how I would use it with him.