Tweaking Easy Classical

[desertmum]

After a lot of soul searching I have to admit I am not one of those wonderful mums who can sit down with a bunch of books and whip up a whole year of lesson plans. I need something to keep me on track. So I stumbled into Easy Classical and loved what I saw :drool5:

 

...except that I would like to go with Singapore Math and not Saxon,and I want to use Jolly Phonics (widely available in the UK), and I would like to use Italic handwriting like Dubay-Getty but Penny Gardner's version (which I already have).

 

I really like the geography and literature, and spelling, and chores, and art, and character building aspect. I am adding science for my science mad kid.

 

So now the question is this. Can you tweak Easy Classical easily or is it going to ruin IT and send ME into a spin? How do you tweak a curriculum successfully?

:willy_nilly:

[desertmum]

Any one? :bigear:

[Mommyfaithe]

I'd love to know too.

:bigear:

:lurk5:

Someone...let us know!

 

Faithe...who wants to use CLE math and LA.

[mama25angels]

I have no idea if it's easy to tweak or not, just thought i'd give you a bump to see if someone will answer.

[oleladyintheshoe]

Well, I don't have a FOR SURE answer b/c I haven't actually used it yet. But, I have burned up the website and the samples in the last few months. Good luck getting any info on it. I posted several questions and quickly learned the only response you will get is crickets chirping.

 

So, I will tell you this. After pouring over it all and reading everything I think is humanly possible to find on the internet about EC, my plan was to just plug my math (CLE), my LA ( FLL) into those slots and proceed as directed. I have no problem with just "doing the next lesson" each day, kwim? If I wanted to get super on top of things, I could go through and white out everything and insert Lessson 1, Lesson 2, etc. I NEED a schedule and still think that it is an invaluable resource and don't see how substituting those subjects would interfere with the backbone of the curriculum in any way. Love the chore thing. And the art. You can email the lady, can't remember her name right now. I had several questions. She got back to me within 2 days and answered all my questions.

[mama25angels]

I honestly don't think it should be too hard to tweak either, just from looking at the samples, but I was only looking at using the History schedule.

[TracieT]

Hi! I just registered just because of this thread! This is almost exactly what I'm planning to do. I just ordered everything yesterday. My oldest is starting Kindergarten this fall and my youngest will be 5 in October. I still haven't decided if I'm just going to have my youngest follow along and see what happens or what. What I DO know is, at least starting off, I need everything scheduled for me. So, I got the Easy Classical Kindergarten schedule.

 

I, too, am going to use Singapore Math Earlybird. And I already have Funnix for reading which is by the same author as the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons that they have on the schedule.

 

Once it arrives I suppose I'll decide if I'll just make those changes in my head or if I'll sit down and go through the Singapore Math books and edit my schedule with the lessons.

 

Do you have your Easy Classical schedule yet? Mine shipped today, so hopefully I'll have it early next week.

[Homeschooling6]

I am using it as my main schedule for 1st and 3rd and yes I'm tweaking it some.

 

I am using Handwriting Without Tears for all kids instead of GD (which we own but none of us cared for it). Math we are using TT.

 

I purchased the writing, copywork (not sure if we will use it because of the font), and geography.

 

I purchase the Early Modern History schedule as well but decided to use Queen Homeschool Living History instead. I want to use Easy Classical's history program but am afraid it will be too much for me.

 

With regards to the Main Schedule, I like that it's all scheduled out and the fact that I paid for it makes it more doable. I feel I'll be more accountable to it and stay on track.

 

I purchased the K, 1st and 3rd Main Schedules but am currently only using the K with Lance.

Edited May 27, 2011 by Homeschooling6

[Woodland_Mom]

I don't think it would be difficult to tweak. Ignore the math grid section and just do the next thing with the math that you want to use. If it really bugs you, you could even take the time to white-out their math lessons and write your own in.

 

Same with handwriting. Use the stuff you want and ignore the Easy Classical plan. That said, I think the Easy Classical handwriting includes copywork that ties to history, which is a nice reinforcement.

 

Good luck! It sounds like you'll have a nice plan that fits YOUR homeschool nicely once you tweak. :)

[TracieT]

My Kindergarten schedule came today! Yay!

[desertmum]

My Kindergarten schedule came today! Yay!

 

 

I can't believe this thread came back to life!

 

Please let me know how you like the schedule. So far and because I am looking at kindy, I 'm liking the character building aspects of it and the chores, and the literature. I bought some of the books so I think I may just get the downloadable schedule. I still need to sit down and write lessons for Singapore and I do my own science just because my kid of beyond K in this.

Well, maybe next school year I can actually stay on track! :auto:

[momma aimee]

:Di need to read this (and more ...)

[Mrs. Lilac]

Giving this thread a bump....I'm looking more and more at Easy Classical. Have any of you tried it? Tried tweaking it?

 

Love to hear all about it! :)

[TracieT]

I've been planning out my first 4 weeks. I bought the hard copy, but I can see now that the downloadable one would have been sufficient. Because I'm copying the schedule into my own planner, making my changes, etc. I love the supply list in the front.

[serendipitous journey]

I know this is an old thread, but have been looking long and hard at Easy Classical myself; just wanted to add a few things I've learned.

 

First, my e-mail to Easy Classical was answered very politely and helpfully, in about two days as another poster noted.

 

Second, the curriculum is essentially YE Creationist in perspective, and the history rotation seems to draw heavily from the Veritas Press cards. First Grade history defaults to the history of the child's state (VP doesn't start history 'till second) which seems to be ecumenical/secular to me; the last two years in the history cycle are pretty ecumenical/secular (according to Easy Classical and to Veritas Press, regarding the cards used by EC during those years) and Ancients through Renaissance history has a strong dose of Protestant-centered Biblical and Church history.

 

Finally, Easy Classical science makes good use of Apologia textbooks along with other sources, which may suit or not. I myself am not Christian, am very science-oriented and teach evolution, and I think that I will purchase the EC Biology science curriculum later this year. The experiments in the samples are some of the best I've seen in terms of being simple, interesting and of really demonstrating what they're supposed to, the supplementary materials look generally wonderful, the gaps/differences between Easy Classical's perspective and mine are things I am comfortable filling in, and I'll be using Apologia astronomy anyhow (I don't have an a priori problem with using materials written from a Creationist perspective).

 

Hope this is helpful to someone -- Easy Classical's schedule was so, so tempting to me but the Biblical/Church thrust of the history won't suit my homeschool.

Edited November 23, 2011 by serendipitous journey
clarity.

[TGHEALTHYMOM]

I know I am late, and I stumbled upon it as well. I have been searching for a few years for a pre made schedule as I am good about setting goals for the year but not weekly. And when we have been in co op classes it was easier in that aspect because we had to do the studying and homework.

 

Please let me know how it is working, I am thinking I will try it because it is based on WTM, not scripted, and I have some replacements as well as a wide range of ages 2-14 so I will have to tweak on both ends, but it seems doable. :grouphug: Maybe its the Perfectionist in me.... I don't want to have to tweak it. I have always wanted Peace Hill to make a curriculum, but as I am reading WTM 3rd. I keep seeing that we as parents have to pick and choose which math, Latin, books, etc. and make it work for us. I had a little worry about the outdated site, but like the concept.

 

PS: I emailed and got a very fast but not on target response. And the site needs to be updated as several books linked to cbd and alibris are no longer available. Some are though and I did order some I was already looking for that were much cheaper and hard to find!

[Carol in Cal.]

That sounds like a lot of tweaking. What is the advantage, then, to purchasing this program? If you're changing the whole thing, what good does it do?

[Kim in SouthGa]

I have been looking at the Early Modern schedule, and it seems like a lot of spines-VP cards, SOTW, and Story of 13 Colonies, with optional History of US. All are scheduled to be read on Monday, but I assume you can spread it out over the week since no other history spines are scheduled the rest of the week? Has anyone dropped one or more of the spines? Particularly I am thinking of the VP cards, since I have the other ones already.

[Guest LaurieDPT]

My school purchased EasyClassical 5 for me to use next year, since I teach 5th grade homeschool assistance.

 

Two "heads up" - 1) Even though Story of the World 2 and 3 are used, the only parts studied have to do with American History - so you are not really studying the Story of the WORLD, you are studying American History. I supplemented by having my class read the international chapters of SOTW as well (India, Japan, South America) and adding books like The Master Puppeteer, Rikki Tikki Tavi and Simon Bolivar.

 

2) If you get the digital schedule, the formatting is not consistent. Some weeks you can "tweek" (add, delete, change) without throwing off the spacing of the rest of the subjects, and other weeks tweeking one thing makes the rest of the schedule unuseable. We tried editable PDF (couldn't delete the icons so they showed up in other subjects), Word, Excel and Open Office without success. In the end, we decided to make our own Excel spreadsheet and manually type in what we wanted. Ugh! That's a LOT of typing! The upside is that at least the subjects you want to follow are already in a schedule that is easy to copy/follow.

 

I don't know a single homeschool family that doesn't tweek their curriculum, certainly by the end of the year. I hope EasyClassical realizes this and makes an editable version of their schedule. With a little tweeking, this could be a great curriculum. They have done a lot of work coordinating the subjects and finding materials for us.