Confessions of a Textbook-Phobe

[silliness7]

Shhhh...(I think I'm falling in love with them.)

The very first homeschooling book I read (this would be 10yrs. or so ago) was Andreola's A Charlotte Mason Companion. I have looked down my nose on textbooks and school-in-a-box ever since. I would silently cringe when learning that friends used all Abeka or Bob Jones. I would pity them. Seriously. I'm not proud of that. After evaluating my past 10 years of homeschooling and my curriculum junkie hopping I truly wish that I had started with some texts and just plugged along. As long as the text is interesting. It MUST be interesting. I can't read a boring book. Notgrass is BORING. SWB's History of the Ancient World ROCKS!

 

A few years ago I fell in love with Saxon math after fighting it pretty hard. Two years ago I fell in love with Apologia General Science. Last year I fell in love with Rod & Staff grammar. Not long after I fell for their spelling. This year I am falling for BJU Spanish (after spending a butt load of money on other stuff) and BJU Physical Science. MFW AHL is not working for us. HOD Bigger is not working for us. I am still happy with HOD CtC. I had to really slash HOD Rev to Rev because there was just TOO MUCH to do!!!

 

When it comes to school, I am finding that my happy places are in textbooks. I feel like I've wasted 10 years. And I feel so badly for my 9th grader. I wish I had been more consistent. :crying: My poor guinea pig.

[mommyagain]

Good for you!

I briefly homeschooled my 2 oldest kids 20yrs ago. Back then the choices were pretty much textbooks or Konos! There was little grey area between. I was firmly entrenched in the Konos/anti-textbook camp........................and quickly burnt out.

 

Now I'm a mommy again :), back to homeschooling and finding an overwhelming amount of choices. I had planned to do Konos this yr, but chickened out at the last minute. But what I'm attempting does not seem to be the best style for these particular kids. So, I'm again making plans for Konos (or my own interest led unit studies) for next year. But guess what my source material will be? Yep, textbooks! I too have found that interesting bits of info from textbooks can be very useful. I'll still use the library, LOTS of hands-on, but will keep a variety of textbooks to use encyclopedia style. It doesn't have to be either/or.

 

I'm sure your 9th grader will be fine.:grouphug: I think all first-borns are guinea pigs (I am a first-born) and God puts a special resiliency in them!:)

[silliness7]

I'm sure your 9th grader will be fine.:grouphug: I think all first-borns are guinea pigs (I am a first-born) and God puts a special resiliency in them!:)

 

He certainly must. He's an awesome kid and I'm very proud of him. I wish I'd had it more together. Oh well. Live and learn. :001_smile:

[mom31257]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who likes them! I've heard it said that the BEST curriculum is the one that actually gets used. If textbooks are how you can get it all done, then it is the best curriculum for you.

[Homeschooling6]

I fought it for it for years as well, finally four years ago I gave in and we have been conistent ever since. School is getting done. I still switch things around but not like I use to. It's more trying another textbook.

 

We started with R&S, then CLE, now my oldest is actually using all Bob Jones.

 

My dd is using America the Beautiful by Notgrass, but she likes it;).

 

I still use things like WWE, Spelling Dictation and such with my younger crowd but eventually they'll all use Bob Jones (I still would like to try MFW High School:001_smile:).

 

My oldest really thrives with textbooks. I had him take an online evaluation and it confirmed that he works best with textbook. He needs everything organized and gets frustrated when there are too many books involved (like with SL, WP, MFW etc.). He loves to read but for school it drives his brain batty:001_huh:.

Edited October 22, 2011 by Homeschooling6

[silliness7]

I fought it for it for years as well, finally four years ago I gave in and we have been conistent ever since. School is getting done. I still switch things around but not like I use to. It's more trying another textbook.

 

We started with R&S, then CLE, now my oldest is actually using all Bob Jones.

 

My dd is using America the Beautiful by Notgrass, but she likes it;).

 

I still use things like WWE, Spelling Dictation and such with my younger crowd but eventually they'll all use Bob Jones (I still would like to try MFW High School:001_smile:).

 

My oldest really thrives with textbooks. I had him take an online evaluation and it confirmed that we works best with textbook. He needs everything organized and gets frustrated when there are too many books involved (like with SL, WP, MFW etc.). He loves to read but for school it drives his brain batty:001_huh:.

 

*I* get frustrated when there are too many books involved. And I LOVE books. My ds was complaining the other day about how he has always hated history. Well duh...It's because I piled the reading on and it took so dang long. We used TruthQuest history for a while. Love the idea of it. But trying to get all your history information from a whole living book is an onerous burden. It seems like a better idea is to read an interesting text and then pick one or two history topics to do some extra reading in. Not every topic. And I'm sure there are wise mommas who do that very thing. I was not one of them. :blush:

[Homeschooling6]

*I* get frustrated when there are too many books involved. And I LOVE books. My ds was complaining the other day about how he has always hated history. Well duh...It's because I piled the reading on and it took so dang long. We used TruthQuest history for a while. Love the idea of it. But trying to get all your history information from a whole living book is an onerous burden. It seems like a better idea is to read an interesting text and then pick one or two history topics to do some extra reading in. Not every topic. And I'm sure there are wise mommas who do that very thing. I was not one of them. :blush:

 

This is what my son does, he will check out lots of books from the library. A few weeks ago he was introduced to Shakespeare in his history text (something I've been wanting to add for years) so he checked out a few book about him. Thankfully he does this on his own.

 

My children LOVE to read as well so using textbooks as their core study and then branching off with lots of great literature from our home and library works great, at least for us :).

[Mom28kds]

I'm so glad to hear this. I was feeling guilty for this same thing. I bought CLE LA & Math for one of my sons and he really didn't like it. I used ABEKA in the past and so I sold my CLE and got ABEKA for math and LA and kind of felt bad because everyone on here said so many negative things about it. I decided that it worked great for my older kids so it couldn't be too bad. Funny thing is he is really liking the ABEKA and I am too. Now, I might go to Bob Jones because it heard it is better than ABEKA but for now, I have the answer books already so there's less I have to buy.

Thank you for your post. I'm glad I'm not the only one :001_smile:.

 

PS. Still contemplating switching my 5th grader's math from CLE to Saxon (which I used in the past). Maybe I'll wait til next year.

[sagira]

still use things like WWE, Spelling Dictation and such with my younger crowd but eventually they'll all use Bob Jones (I still would like to try MFW High School:001_smile:).

 

My oldest really thrives with textbooks. I had him take an online evaluation and it confirmed that he works best with textbook. He needs everything organized and gets frustrated when there are too many books involved (like with SL, WP, MFW etc.). He loves to read but for school it drives his brain batty:001_huh:.

 

Could you please link to the online evaluation? I would love for ds (and I) to take that.

 

I'm surprised how much ds and I are enjoying Singapore Science (MPH), textbooks and workbooks. Before that, we were using living books and BFSU. Now Science is one of his favorite subjects too. My idea is to use Singapore in conjunction with BFSU. He enjoys the introduction and activities in BFSU (and discussions), but he needs more visually, and

something he can hold on to. I find the TM illuminating as well, a great framework for me to build on.

 

Aside from Science, we're supplementing PLL with Voyages in English. We do it orally, and ds is retaining and understanding. We're still doing great with PLL, but the framework and color of VIE does both ds and I good, too :)

 

I'm also planning on using K12 History Odyssey in 7th and 8th to review the whole of history before hs. Would SWB's History of the Ancient World be considered a textbook? I thought it was more like SOTW (?). CM approved of an interesting narrative in History. In fact, in her time she recommended Henryk Van Loon's book.

Edited October 22, 2011 by sagira

[....]

There's nothing wrong with textbooks. We own almost every Apologia textbook below the high school level. Everyone we know who homeschools uses BJU.

 

There's more than one way to homeschool! Families need to do what works for them.

[silliness7]

[/b]

 

Would SWB's History of the Ancient World be considered a textbook? I thought it was more like SOTW (?). CM approved of an interesting narrative in History. In fact, in her time she recommended Henryk Van Loon's book.

 

 

If there is such a thing as a living textbook. SWB's book is it. It has all the information of a text (more really) yet written in a very engaging manner. Of course, if you wanted to do World History in a year with her books instead of say, Bob Jones World History, I don't know if that's possible. Because it is ALOT more reading. We started off highschool this year following MFW's model of taking two years for World History and so it will work for us. The only problem is that there are no typical support materials to go with it. We are currently using it as a supplement to Notgrass which has the "support." and dropped all of MFW's other supplements. But I so hate Notgrass I'm considering dropping it and doing SWB's book only. That makes me a bit nervous though. We'll see.

 

And I just realized I'm talking way too much about highschool on the K-8 thread. Sorry. :blush:

[silliness7]

There's nothing wrong with textbooks. We own almost every Apologia textbook below the high school level. Everyone we know who homeschools uses BJU.

 

There's more than one way to homeschool! Families need to do what works for them.

 

Absolutely!!! Families do need to do what works for them. I wish that I had not read so many homeschool helps with an anti-textbook theme which really influenced me away from them. Part of me gets it, though. It resonated with me at the time. I can't stand a boring text. I can't put up with snippets. And I guess I assumed they were ALL like that. Maybe we should start a thread compiling recommendations for well-written, interesting textbooks.

[Homeschooling6]

[/b]

 

Could you please link to the online evaluation? I would love for ds (and I) to take that.

 

I'm surprised how much ds and I are enjoying Singapore Science (MPH), textbooks and workbooks. Before that, we were using living books and BFSU. Now Science is one of his favorite subjects too. My idea is to use Singapore in conjunction with BFSU. He enjoys the introduction and activities in BFSU (and discussions), but he needs more visually, and

something he can hold on to. I find the TM illuminating as well, a great framework for me to build on.

 

Aside from Science, we're supplementing PLL with Voyages in English. We do it orally, and ds is retaining and understanding. We're still doing great with PLL, but the framework and color of VIE does both ds and I good, too :)

 

I'm also planning on using K12 History Odyssey in 7th and 8th to review the whole of history before hs. Would SWB's History of the Ancient World be considered a textbook? I thought it was more like SOTW (?). CM approved of an interesting narrative in History. In fact, in her time she recommended Henryk Van Loon's book.

 

I'll have to look around for it. There is a book out about it and I can see it in my mind but can't remember the title. The book is about learning styles.The author now has a website before she did the evaluations herself but she is located in CA and it's pretty expensive, so I was happy to find her online one.

 

I'll look around this weekend.

 

Edited to add that I found the book http://www.amazon.com/Discover-Your-Childs-Learning-Style/dp/0761520139/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1319308738&sr=8-5

 

Again, I'll try to find the website.

 

Found the website http://discoveryourchildslearningstyle.com/

I think I paid a little less and found it at http://homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/ but I don't see it there anymore. It was over a year ago when Josh took it though.

Edited October 23, 2011 by Homeschooling6

[Lisbeth]

Not a huge fan of textbooks here, either. I just by nature want an in depth story or analysis, and textbooks rarely do that for me. They gloss over so much. I did break down and get Abeka for health this year. I don't think I'll ever pick one boxed set of something all from the same company and go with it. It's just not my style!

[mom31257]

If there is such a thing as a living textbook. SWB's book is it. It has all the information of a text (more really) yet written in a very engaging manner. Of course, if you wanted to do World History in a year with her books instead of say, Bob Jones World History, I don't know if that's possible. Because it is ALOT more reading. We started off highschool this year following MFW's model of taking two years for World History and so it will work for us. The only problem is that there are no typical support materials to go with it. We are currently using it as a supplement to Notgrass which has the "support." and dropped all of MFW's other supplements. But I so hate Notgrass I'm considering dropping it and doing SWB's book only. That makes me a bit nervous though. We'll see.

 

And I just realized I'm talking way too much about highschool on the K-8 thread. Sorry. :blush:

 

If you are still considering a spine, I'll share our experience. Dh is a history teacher and looked at Notgrass's samples and didn't like the way it was written. We're using Biblioplan and planning a 4 year cycle. Dd is reading Glencoe's World History as a spine and was using BJU's World History as well but no longer. She likes Glencoe but really didn't like BJU. I let her read a chapter in A Beka since I had one, and she said A Beka was much more of the facts and less Christian thought interjection where it didn't seem to belong. This was her complaint about BJU.

 

My thought was for her to read both spines and be able to compare the different approaches, secular and Christian.

[sagira]

Thank you!! I appreciate it, homeschooling6. I have a busy enough time schooling one, sending one to preschool for 3 hours, and caring for an infant :)

[Mjfb]

Textbooks provide a few things for me: they keep the majority of the info in one place, and we can spin off from there. They have lovely pictures ;). And, probably most importantly, here at the beginning stages, they help me keep my information relatively age-appropriate.

 

 

That last might seem like a no-brainer, but I remember feeling like I had a lifetime of knowledge to cram into my 6yo when she first came home. Poor kid- amazing she survived some of my science lessons :willy_nilly:.

 

We have a science one (love) which I use as a spine, and a ss official workbook that we despise (talks down to the kids, explanations are too simplistic) but which makes us all feel brilliant :D

 

They give us a nice safety net as well: I don't worry about missing anything terribly vital, and we have the freedom to expand however we'd like.

[Perogi]

Textbooks provide a few things for me: they keep the majority of the info in one place, and we can spin off from there. They have lovely pictures ;). And, probably most importantly, here at the beginning stages, they help me keep my information relatively age-appropriate.

 

 

That last might seem like a no-brainer, but I remember feeling like I had a lifetime of knowledge to cram into my 6yo when she first came home. Poor kid- amazing she survived some of my science lessons :willy_nilly:.

 

We have a science one (love) which I use as a spine, and a ss official workbook that we despise (talks down to the kids, explanations are too simplistic) but which makes us all feel brilliant :D

 

They give us a nice safety net as well: I don't worry about missing anything terribly vital, and we have the freedom to expand however we'd like.

 

I was just lamenting to my mom tonight that I'm leaning towards using Donna Ward's Canadian history textbook/workbook next year for dd. I don't think of myself as *that* kind of hs'ing parent but whenever I look at other ways of accomplishing Canadian history in a living books fashion I know it's going to take SO much of my time and I worry about gaps. What you expressed above about a safety net is exactly the reason that I'm thinking of doing Donna Ward's material - it will assure me that we are covering the bases and leave me free to pull in some interesting historical fiction just for fun!

[...................]

We use Calvert now, but have tried CM style, and eclectic style with mostly CM for history and Science in the past. My dd will start Calvert next year and is using all textbooks this year. I had started the year planning all FIAR every week but I don't have the books at my library. There's just always something I don't have, or can't get, or don't have time for with unit studies. And with CM, neither of my kids thrived with that approach! Even though I highly respect some of the CM-ish materials that I have used, especially PLL, my kids disliked them.

 

 

My oldest is a Lion Beaver...very much in charge and very hardworking and diligent. He loves to know what is expected, work hard and get it done, and then he reads and reads and reads and reads and reads on his own. He likes me to have a checklist and to stick with the same publishers and make the expectations clear. He also struggles GREATLy with spelling, so dictation was nearly impossible, yet he was ready to move beyond copywork. His compositions are excellent. I just give him a word bank from his own words, or help him spell.

 

My younger dd, you would THINK would love a unit study or CM education because she is very artistic, energetic, and loves to play. Like an otter. Always playing. BUt even for her textbooks are superior, because I can keep her accountable and she is learning to be diligent and stay focused. With teacher directed learning, she just zones out and it becomes a battle. With textbooks it's very simple. You do these pages in 30 minutes. If you do not you go to bed 15 minutes early.

 

With Calvert, I have all my books and supplies on hand. All I need is a printer now and then, and to order a few extra Science supplies in the beginning of the year. There is no guesswork, no frustration, no confusion.

 

I may not use Calvert next year if we can't afford it but I will forever stay with textbooks from now on!

[silliness7]

If you are still considering a spine, I'll share our experience. Dh is a history teacher and looked at Notgrass's samples and didn't like the way it was written. We're using Biblioplan and planning a 4 year cycle. Dd is reading Glencoe's World History as a spine and was using BJU's World History as well but no longer. She likes Glencoe but really didn't like BJU. I let her read a chapter in A Beka since I had one, and she said A Beka was much more of the facts and less Christian thought interjection where it didn't seem to belong. This was her complaint about BJU.

 

My thought was for her to read both spines and be able to compare the different approaches, secular and Christian.

 

That's really good to know about Bob Jones as that is where I was leaning. For the first half of World History we'll use SWB's Ancient and Medieval books but I'll need something else for part 2. I'll look into Glencoe.

[silliness7]

We use Calvert now, but have tried CM style, and eclectic style with mostly CM for history and Science in the past. My dd will start Calvert next year and is using all textbooks this year. I had started the year planning all FIAR every week but I don't have the books at my library. There's just always something I don't have, or can't get, or don't have time for with unit studies. And with CM, neither of my kids thrived with that approach! Even though I highly respect some of the CM-ish materials that I have used, especially PLL, my kids disliked them.

 

 

My oldest is a Lion Beaver...very much in charge and very hardworking and diligent. He loves to know what is expected, work hard and get it done, and then he reads and reads and reads and reads and reads on his own. He likes me to have a checklist and to stick with the same publishers and make the expectations clear. He also struggles GREATLy with spelling, so dictation was nearly impossible, yet he was ready to move beyond copywork. His compositions are excellent. I just give him a word bank from his own words, or help him spell.

 

My younger dd, you would THINK would love a unit study or CM education because she is very artistic, energetic, and loves to play. Like an otter. Always playing. BUt even for her textbooks are superior, because I can keep her accountable and she is learning to be diligent and stay focused. With teacher directed learning, she just zones out and it becomes a battle. With textbooks it's very simple. You do these pages in 30 minutes. If you do not you go to bed 15 minutes early.

 

With Calvert, I have all my books and supplies on hand. All I need is a printer now and then, and to order a few extra Science supplies in the beginning of the year. There is no guesswork, no frustration, no confusion.

 

I may not use Calvert next year if we can't afford it but I will forever stay with textbooks from now on!

 

I was looking at Calvert's website the other day. It's out of our price range but I really want to use their CHOW study and their Art History study.

[silliness7]

Textbooks provide a few things for me: they keep the majority of the info in one place, and we can spin off from there. They have lovely pictures ;). And, probably most importantly, here at the beginning stages, they help me keep my information relatively age-appropriate.

.

 

Oh my goodness, Yes!! My poor 2nd grader. She's a trooper but I am so tired of reading books to her that she doesn't get or that have so much information in them she just can't wrap her brain around it all.

[...................]

I do highly recommend the CHOW study. The workbook has outlines plus enrichment. The enrichment is great! Everything from recipes to puzzles to crafts and more. The teacher's manual has good comprehension questions. Not too thought-provoking but useful. :)