Best Curriculum for Visual Learners

[Wheres Toto]

I noticed in the FLL thread that some felt it didn't work because they had visual learners. My son is a very definite visual spatial learner. So, I thought maybe we could do a thread of what curriculums we've found that work well for Visual learners.

 

We are just starting out but so far my son loves:

 

MEP for math

ETC for phonics

AAS for reading and spelling

 

For everything else we're mainly doing puzzles, games and picture books.

[blessedmom3]

I have a VSL too. CLE Math works good for him but we are using a Rightstart Abacus . I heard Math U See is very good for VSL but my son does not do well with it. We do use the blocks though along with the abacus.

 

For Grammar, I am planning FLL but I am prepared to adapt it to his needs. I will write down , illustrate , draw the things he will learn . If this does not work, I am planning ACE curriculum for English &Literature.

 

For History , I know SOTW won't work , so we'll use textbooks . Abeka in the younger grades, BJU in the older. If this won't work , I'll back up with ACE .

 

Science --Lots of hands on experiments and Abeka for younger , ACE for older + lots of books .

[LittleIzumi]

:lol: Well, I was going to say MEP, ETC, and AAS :lol:

 

Also we do a child-led science spine with lots of photo-filled nonfiction books and dd designs her own experiments constantly. I also have her work on a nature observation notebook, and she colors/draws during her quiet time. Abridged classics work much better than the full-length ATM, and there are a lot of illustrated classics coming out now it seems, and those work much better for her as well. She won't sit through a normal classic read-aloud. Oh, and our foreign language is ASL and we love Signing Time--very visual & spatial, & easy to remember.

[LittleIzumi]

I heard Math U See is very good for VSL but my son does not do well with it.

 

 

Yup. It worked well for teaching concepts... but dd can't stop playing with the blocks, assigning them characters & stories & putting them in houses with friends & putting them on her fingertips & building with them like Legos... and not paying attention to the math whatsoever. Took ages to get through three problems with the blocks.

[amtmcm]

My older DD is visual spatial. As mentioned above, CLE math was a great fit for her prior to Algebra.

 

Current editions of BJU Science (and even A Beka Science) have been excellent since they include so many beautiful photos and excellent diagrams.

 

Literature based history has worked well for her, but I'm not sure if that's related to her being visual-spatial? Omnibus is a huge hit this year!

 

CLE Language Arts and Reading was good too, but maybe not her favorites.

 

ETA: As much as I like CLE, it was not a good fit for my younger DD who tends to be Linear-Analytical. That was an interesting discovery (and disappointing) for me. Easy Grammar and BJU Math have worked well for her.

Edited November 24, 2010 by amtmcm

[Moniksca]

I have a page on my blog about VSLs. I added all the curricula moms were using with their VSLs (scroll to the bottom), I always keep an eye out for VSL threads.

 

Not a curriculum but we always use lapbooks for history and science. We tried MUS but the repetition killed my VSL and we are currently using Saxon with MUS blocks.

[HollyB]

My 6yo is a visual learner, and FLL is one of her favorite subjects. I put up bright, silly looking posters of the poems and definitions. This seems to help her remember everything (along with the constant review, of course!). I also try to come up with a coloring page or quick craft for her to do while I read the poems. It's working well and she enjoys it.

[Closeacademy]

My VSL (who is my oldest) has done best with:

 

Singapore Math (earlybird to PM2)

Rod and Staff Math

Spell to Write and Read (with a Waldorf twist to add in picture/movement cues)

 

Science kits

Oak Meadow

Ruth Heller's grammar picture books (Merry Go Round is the one about nouns)

lapbooking (science, biography, books, history)

notebooking (math, grammar, spelling/phonics)--to have a reference she can look back at

 

word banks for writing

graphic novels

coloring pages to go with read alouds

 

I think that's a pretty good list of what has worked for us over the years.:001_smile:

[Wheres Toto]

Yup. It worked well for teaching concepts... but dd can't stop playing with the blocks, assigning them characters & stories & putting them in houses with friends & putting them on her fingertips & building with them like Legos... and not paying attention to the math whatsoever. Took ages to get through three problems with the blocks.

 

:lol:

This is EXACTLY what my son would do. He does it with the counters we use for MEP, he does it with the letter tiles for AAS, even even does it with his pencils. (Except the building part of course). So far it doesn't interfere too much since he's also doing what he's supposed to (the letter tiles in AAS talk - okay h and t it's time for you to go away and her comes c and r to sit with a). :D I can just imagine what would happen with a curriculum based entirely on little blocks that snap together. We have unifix blocks and they're strictly a toy/game item.

[LittleIzumi]

I have a page on my blog about VSLs. I added all the curricula moms were using with their VSLs (scroll to the bottom), I always keep an eye out for VSL threads.

 

Not a curriculum but we always use lapbooks for history and science. We tried MUS but the repetition killed my VSL and we are currently using Saxon with MUS blocks.

 

From the blog: "In the book Upside down brilliance Silverman found a correlation between VSLs and late talkers, not saying that all late talkers were going to be VSLs but that a majority of VSLs were late talkers." Interesting. Mine were indeed late talkers. Hmmm. The blog also mentioned Schoolhouse Rock & Bill Nye DVDs, and my dds love those plus LeapFrog DVDs and SuperWHY DVDs for reading mechanics, and also Popular Mechanics For Kids and Magic School Bus DVDs, and MadLibs for dd5.

[Flux]

My son is definitely visual/spatial and music is a winner for him as well. He will be 3 next month and has just shown an interest in trying to copy what we say! This is in stark contrast to my daughter, who was having full conversations with me in complete sentences at just over 12 months. I don't like the TV on much at all at our house, but he learns so quickly and effortlessly from it. I guess I just have to make sure I am "programming" him with the right stuff?:tongue_smilie: I have often joked with myself that I should videotape myself teaching him something that I've had a hard time with (like making the "L" sound, for instance) and see if he learns it better watching me on the tube! Yes, he loves the leapfrog vid's, but since he LOVES music so much, the Here Come the ABC's DVD from They Might Be Giants has been a huge hit over here. If he can dance to it, he remembers it. He learned the alphabet and the sounds (and enjoyed it) in a week and a half! I don't have any other suggestions because I'm new at this (and it's not the way my brain works at all), but thank you for this thread.

[MerryAtHope]

I heard Math U See is very good for VSL but my son does not do well with it.

 

I thought about MUS early on but never felt my son would do well with it back then (for one thing, color was too important to him, I couldn't even interest him in it back then!). However, I do find that it's a good match now (we just switched this year at Pre-alg.). It may be for some VSL's that it's a good fit later even if it isn't early on, I don't know.

 

Merry :-)

[Crimson Wife]

From the blog: "In the book Upside down brilliance Silverman found a correlation between VSLs and late talkers, not saying that all late talkers were going to be VSLs but that a majority of VSLs were late talkers." Interesting. Mine were indeed late talkers. Hmmm.

 

Interesting. My DS was a late talker and he appears to be VSL. He's loving MEP and AAS too! :D He also loves the Singapore My Pals are Here Science books (much more so that his sister, to whom they actually belong). He also seems very interested in his sister's sentence diagramming workbook.

[mama25angels]

Yup. It worked well for teaching concepts... but dd can't stop playing with the blocks, assigning them characters & stories & putting them in houses with friends & putting them on her fingertips & building with them like Legos... and not paying attention to the math whatsoever. Took ages to get through three problems with the blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

:lol: my DS does the same thing, I finally had to take the blocks away, his math time was much shorter. I'm moving him to Singapore after Thanksgiving.

[Wheres Toto]

From the blog: "In the book Upside down brilliance Silverman found a correlation between VSLs and late talkers, not saying that all late talkers were going to be VSLs but that a majority of VSLs were late talkers." Interesting. Mine were indeed late talkers. Hmmm. The blog also mentioned Schoolhouse Rock & Bill Nye DVDs, and my dds love those plus LeapFrog DVDs and SuperWHY DVDs for reading mechanics, and also Popular Mechanics For Kids and Magic School Bus DVDs, and MadLibs for dd5.

 

That book is a great one. My son was a late talker - he was in Early Intervention from 3 to 4 years old mainly due to speaking in his own babbling language. In EI he did progress very quickly.

 

Videos are a wonderful thing for him. We probably watch way more television/videos than most would consider good but they really work.

[rowan25]

This is very interesting to me. After researching and reading, I've discovered that my dd6 has MANY of the VSL traits. The main difference is that she is very verbal: started talked around 5 months, spontaneously started reading around 18 months, etc. But everything else!!! Talk about blow my mind.

 

Being VERY auditory sequential here, I'm having to rethink my entire way of teaching, much less what I was using to teach. Does anyone have any other curricula that they have had success with for VSL's?

[wapiti]

Silverman's book is fantastic, IMO, though it's sort of the tip of the iceberg - I look forward to future books/research in this area (I've seen others, but none really struck me the way Silverman's did). I wish it were more easily available - try your library - it's well worth putting on hold. That book was really eye-opening for me, and is sort of the root beginning of our journey from ps to hs-ing. We were doing some testing at Silverman's place, and during the break, the tester handed me the book, opened to the chapter on introversion. I began reading for the sake of dd, and ended up reading all about myself. It was quite shocking, really - it had me in tears. How could anyone know this much about me. (Also, FWIW, my three oldest kids were all late talkers, had speech therapy, etc.)

[angela&4boys]

This is what has worked well for our now 10yo ds:

 

CLE Math

Winston Grammar

Heritage Studies (BJU's elementary series)

 

I wish I could say FLL worked for him. The diagramming did some, but the oral instruction is where I'd often lose him.

[Aurelia]

Stuff that works for us:

 

Right Start and MEP for math

Atelier art

La Clase Divertida

Jolly Phonics/Jolly Grammar - they have hand motions for each sound or grammar term, which Ariel loves, things like "pretend you're a sailor and salute saying "aye aye"" for the long I sound

She absolutely loves natural science videos, especially The Life of Mammals and The Jeff Corwin Experience.

The clips of the Horrible Histories on YouTube have been excellent, too. She goes around the house singing about the fates of the wives of Henry VIII and bubonic plague after watching them. :lol:

When little, the Leapfrog videos were excellent.

Since videos hold her interest and boost her retention so well, I'm happy to let her watch them, as long as they are educational.

[mo2]

:bigear:

 

There just aren't enough good threads about VSLs!

[rowan25]

Those are some good ideas! I'm going to have to look up the Horrible Histories stuff. We're doing Ancients this year and would love something like that to add in.

 

In a total aside, every time I see MEP, I say MEEP. And every time I see VSL, I say Vizla. :rofl:

 

I now return to your regularly scheduled thread already in progress!

[LittleIzumi]

BFSU is working wonderfully for dd5, but she is science MAD :lol:. It has discussion but mostly simple activities that truly help her apply the principles--blow up a balloon and also make a basic scale & weigh an empty balloon and the inflated balloon to learn about air/gas taking up space & having weight, collecting lots of items & sorting them into biological, natural non-living, and human-made, etc. Not just random experiments, but learning through using the principle in the lesson actively in several ways, with a small amount of discussion (really a Q&A session--you're not supposed to lecture) before & after. We also use TONS of visual non-fiction books whenever possible. A new fun series we found is Max Axiom: Super Scientist. It's comic book style.

[Moniksca]

Stuff that works for us:

 

Right Start and MEP for math

Atelier art

La Clase Divertida

Jolly Phonics/Jolly Grammar - they have hand motions for each sound or grammar term, which Ariel loves, things like "pretend you're a sailor and salute saying "aye aye"" for the long I sound

 

 

Thank you, I was looking for this phonics program. My ds learned to read in school using Jolly phonics. I wanted to use it with my next ds.

[rowan25]

Speaking of phonice, I wish I could find a home version of what we used in school. It was called the Letter People. Every letter had a song; there were little videos; it was fun. I even still remember some of the tag lines for the letters.

 

Munching mouth for M. Tall teeth for T. Funny feet for F. The vowels were all female and the consonants were all male. It was fun!

 

Does anyone remember this? I wonder if we could find it for homeschool? Seems like it would have been perfect for VSL's.

[savmom]

Speaking of phonice, I wish I could find a home version of what we used in school. It was called the Letter People. Every letter had a song; there were little videos; it was fun. I even still remember some of the tag lines for the letters.

 

Munching mouth for M. Tall teeth for T. Funny feet for F. The vowels were all female and the consonants were all male. It was fun!

 

Does anyone remember this? I wonder if we could find it for homeschool? Seems like it would have been perfect for VSL's.

 

I still remember the corny theme song :D. My dd has enjoyed the videos from utube. If you google search letter people videos you will get links to almost all the episodes. There is a list of episodes on wikipedia and I would post the link if could figure out what folder the bookmark is in :tongue_smilie:

 

Unfortunately, the company sold out & the letter people series was revised, sometime in the early 90's, if I recall correctly. The updated version was on tv here in AZ when my ds was about 3-4 and it totally lost the charm of the original series. You can buy the revised version via the current publisher but it is nothing like it was in the 70's (man that seems like so long ago).

[rowan25]

I still remember the corny theme song :D. My dd has enjoyed the videos from utube. If you google search letter people videos you will get links to almost all the episodes. There is a list of episodes on wikipedia and I would post the link if could figure out what folder the bookmark is in :tongue_smilie:

 

Unfortunately, the company sold out & the letter people series was revised, sometime in the early 90's, if I recall correctly. The updated version was on tv here in AZ when my ds was about 3-4 and it totally lost the charm of the original series. You can buy the revised version via the current publisher but it is nothing like it was in the 70's (man that seems like so long ago).

Come and meet the Letter People

Come and meet the family

Words are made from Letter People

A B C D, Follow me.....:D

 

I was afraid of that. I tried searching and most of what I turned up was the "new and improved" version. Not to my mind, but then again, I liked what I grew up with! Oh well. Thanks!

[stripe]

Speaking of phonice, I wish I could find a home version of what we used in school. It was called the Letter People.

 

Try some of the links here

http://sortingthroughlifeslessons.blogspot.com/2009/07/letter-people-resources.html

 

The lyrics to the songs are at

http://ashyraine.shanock.com/lp/index.php

 

Some of these sets do come up for sale on ebay.

[rowan25]

Try some of the links here

http://sortingthroughlifeslessons.blogspot.com/2009/07/letter-people-resources.html

 

The lyrics to the songs are at

http://ashyraine.shanock.com/lp/index.php

 

Some of these sets do come up for sale on ebay.

Oh neat! Thanks so much

[Guest jodilock]

Meet the Sight Words Dvd's 1,2, and 3 worked wonders for my VSL dd. We struggled with sight words prior to watching these videos and literally within one viewing of each was reading sight words perfectly there-after. The videos are really cute too. :D