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Change the curriculum or change the teaching?


Soror
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I've been wondering about this lately. We are still in k-2 here and focusing on skill areas. When I started of course I was only just schooling ds so I picked programs based on his needs. Now dd has come along and most of those choices have stayed the same, although the time line has been a bit different. I wonder at times if I should put as much effort into trying to pick things specifically for her as I did for him. My thought so far though is that as long as it works for her I'm not looking to change as I think my effort is used more efficiently teaching material I'm already familiar with and adapting it as needed. I do see down the road though their paths diverging and life getting more complicated.

 

So, what says the hive which side you fall on? Change the curriculum or change the teaching and when do you pick which?

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My thought so far though is that as long as it works for her I'm not looking to change as I think my effort is used more efficiently teaching material I'm already familiar with and adapting it as needed.

 

This. I'm not going to change things for my dd6 just to change. It is so much easier teaching things the second time (or third, phonics and math with dd4), that I will only change things if I absolutely must. I did change what we use for English (foreign language), because I mucked around a lot with dd8. What I'm using now with dd6 works beautifully, so that is what I will start with with dd4&dd1.

 

I need my time now learning Latin and reading Great Books (and playing around with AoPS :D).

Edited by Tress
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Coming from the 'old days' when curriculum choices were much more limited, I've never understood this mentality of using a different curriculum for every child and constantly switching to match your kids. Some customization is important yes, and sometimes there are special circumstances that call for a special curriculum, but your child's future boss, or college professor, is not going to alter their instruction based on whether your child is a visual learner or tactile learner or whatever. I choose curriculum based on how they match my educational philosophies, priorities, and our family's general 'style', and plan to use them for each child, with tweaking. As such, I don't mind spending a decent amount on something I'm convinced about, as I intend to see it re-used repeatedly.

 

Why fix what isn't broken? I don't buy into this idea that a curriculum needs to be catered completely to a child. If it worked well for your first child, chances are it will work just as well for your second. If it is a really bad fit for whatever reason (and that does happen) you'll know it soon enough, and that will tell you what you need to look for in a new curriculum, but right now, what exactly would you be looking for? Something different to what you have now just for the sake of it? Something similar? That's an awful expensive modification.

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My motto (like the pps) is "Ya don't fix what ain't broke". Of course you might redecorate it from time to time. ;) That said my oldest and my second are two very different type of learners, but still I always tried what I had and if it didn't work then I would change, but only on the skills subjects. History and science were easy to change the way they were used and to supplement. Knowing what I know now about my children, I can see how I could have salvaged thew curriculum I was using to make it work for each one, but hindsight is 20/20. :)

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I understand wanting a curriculum to work for everybody. We have that problem with mathin our house. The boys can use the same thing for everything else but math.

 

Fury gets distracted (yes still at 13) by pictures on his math pages. If there are pictures, they have to have something to do with the task at hand. So he needs a plain-jane approach to math.

 

Dragon gets distracted during math if there aren't pictures so he needs something more colorful than his brother. As a mom, I still prefer relevant pictures on the page.

 

I'm curious as to what kind of learner my youngest will be. So far, he reminds me more of Dragon than Fury.

 

But I would try tweaking what you have before buying new.

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One of the perks of homeschooling is also one of the pitfalls--We can cater to exactly what our dc need, but that doesn't mean we need to spend a ton to do it.

 

I agree with others that say the curriculum can usually be tweaked to fit more than one type of learner. There's also the idea that using a weaker learning style occasionally will strengthen the ability to use it! So it's not all bad to work in a less comfortable mode from time to time.

 

Thirdly, remember that the curriculum that is used is better than one that fits but sits...on the shelf. Don't forget that your teaching style is also important. Use what you are likely to teach well.

 

Adjust as needed. :001_smile:

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:iagree:

 

MY oldest and youngest are 14 years apart. I use the same books for her that I did for him. I have bought a few things along the way because I did not like what was available when I was teaching him, but most are re-used.

 

I may use the materials differently, but I still use them.

 

Linda

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Although I have definitely been fine tuning what I'm doing with DS in relation to DS, much of the fine tuning has been more about what works for me or what I can work with. DD is totally different but what we have decided is core to our children's education remains the same. The children may progress at different speeds, may not go the same distances, may require different help but the resources I've found myself settling down with have been those that are enabling me to teach from a place of strength and rest (still searching for this in content subjects). For that reason I don't think of my choices as being specific to DS but in terms of whether I can teach DS with them (knowing his strengths, weaknesses and inclinations) so I would make my decisions on using something new in light of whether I need something else to help me teach DD successfully. I hope this subtle difference isn't getting lost in my attempt to explain it.

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So, what says the hive which side you fall on? Change the curriculum or change the teaching and when do you pick which?

 

I've tried both. In my experience it's generally better to stick with the same curriculum and change the teaching; we ended up curriculum hopping trying to find perfection. Most children will do well with most curriculums, especially if you adapt your teaching to the child. However sometimes you end up spinning your wheels and making no progress. Then it's best to change curriculum. :D

 

The difference: changing because we hit a sticking point never worked well. What worked best was backing up (reviewing) before hitting the sticking point again. :auto: However if we could not make progress with a curriculum despite working with it for 1-2 years, we had more success switching. There's only so much headbanging I can take. :banghead:

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When I've curriculum hopped, it's usually been ME that was bored. :lol: I find curriculum that matches my teaching style, and then make sure it works for the kid.

 

My oldest two are VERY different. I can't tell yet if I'll be able to reuse curriculum with them or not. Some I will. I'm using Singapore with both of them, despite them being different learning styles (oldest is very straight forward abstract-thinker, middle child thinks in pictures and has a hard time with abstract concepts). Curriculum is often designed to fit multiple learning styles, and so far, this one is working for both kids.

 

I can see probably needing different grammar between these two. My oldest got to try out R&S, FLL, and finally landed on KISS. He needed something difficult, and KISS it is. Middle child still has strange word order sometimes in speech, tells me I need to "learn him" something, etc. R&S English may be a great fit for him. It wasn't a great fit for DS1 in the early years because it was going over basic English that he spoke correctly everyday (plus he reads a lot). Middle child hasn't started reading books on his own yet and is in speech therapy. So their needs are VERY different. Thankfully, I've kept the grammar programs we have gone through, knowing that I may need to use them for another child. :) Right now, it's hard to picture DS2 doing KISS at all, but we'll see. It may end up a good fit for him too, when he's in 3rd or 4th grade.

 

Other subjects, I'll just try what DS1 used, and if it doesn't work, we'll do something else. I'm not sure how WWE1 will go next year in first grade, but we'll try it. We may need to move slower or even wait a year. Or it might go just fine and DS2 will surprise me. He often does. :D

 

In the OP's case, if the material you're using with your DD is working fine for her, I would not go fishing for something different to match her learning style. If she's learning, her learning style is taken care of. As I said, most curricula cater to multiple learning styles.

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I agree with most of the others - most curricula can be tweaked to fit the learner.

There are, of course, exceptions to that. My eldest is dyslexic - her curricula caters to that. Unless my son is also dyslexic (and he's only 3 now, so we won't know that for many years), he will probably need a different curriculum.

 

I started our homeschool journey staying pretty closely tied in curricula choices to TWTM. Of course that isn't usually going to work for a dyslexic (FLL, SOTW and WWE were epic fails with her and put her more behind), so I am still tweaking as we hit the middle school years with her.

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I think I agree with what others have said here, for the most part. That said, I've learned from my mistakes and am not using all the same things for my second that I did on my first. One example that springs to mind is Explode the Code. I'm not rebuying those things--they were expensive, ugly, and not all that helpful, although my son worked through them all successfully. Now I'll just do AAS from the start. Much nicer!

 

However, I have switched curricula in view of the fact that I'll be teaching multiple children. I'm using Biblioplan, where we can study the same history content as a group but split off into age-appropriate readings, writing responses, etc., for individual work.

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I am changing some things I haven't liked, still trying to decide on phonics and spelling- I really hope I can get that settled this year! I love our Math though (RS) but I don't know if I will take dd as far in it as I have ds. I see taking her through B though and past that we will see. It is more teacher intensive and I can see as I have more to school I might want to look at changing that. I like HWoT and tried something else this year but decided it didn't matter all that much and I'd rather use what we have before. We like WWE well enough and I plan to start dd1 on that but I've been planning to start ds on IEW on that next year as well but we will see how I like it.

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