Christian School Curriculum

Am considering teaching my son next year because of his problems with behavior. Anyone have experience with a self paced, christian based home school curriculum?

Well, really, any curriculum used at home is self-paced. Just because it may be set up specifically to do x pages per day doesn't mean you have to do that.

If you're looking for an all-in-one curriculum, A Beka, Bob Jones and Alpha Omega are all fairly popular. Sonlight is also popular, but structured very differently. It goes through all grade levels.

2007-03-12 15:56:16 by PJ

evolution should be a part of christian school's and homeschooling curriculum WINNER : www.youtube.com

and please explain to me why you like it. I would like to find a really good company. I have looked into A Beka but heard they are really expensive.

I use a mix of companies.

Abeka is about $500/grade for everything (student books, teacher manuals, test books, etc). They are actually mid-priced as far as complete curriculums go. Some subjects are not very academically challenging like elementary science. Not much direct instruction of study skills either. Lots of repetition with little variety of activities in lessons. We did it for a year and half. By the end of that time my son and I were both in tears to the point we didn't finish the year with them.

Christian Light Education is what I now use for reading, language arts, Bible, and some social studies. I switched from Abeka to them 2 years ago with much improvement and less complaining from my son. I am very satisfied with their curriculum. I began my daughter with their Learning to Read last year and she is doing great. Their subjects are workbook based with some textbooks. They are a conservative Christian (Mennonite) published company so they have Christian morals and Biblical values throughout all of their subjects as well as study skills for a well rounded education. They have a larger variety of activities in each workbook than Abeka. Very reasonable prices. Less than $300/grade for everything. You don't have to by an entire year at once. You can purchase just part of the year then more later as you need or can afford it. They offer a record keeping and academic advising program called Homeschool Plus for $160/family a year.

For math I use Math-U-See. This is a block and book curriculum for grades kindergarten to calculus. I really liked that they use the same blocks all the way through so they aren't always having to switch manipulatives. The blocks really help introduce concepts, but students aren't dependent upon them. There's also a DVD that explains and introduces each lesson concept very well. Each lesson has 3 lesson practice pages and 3 mixed review pages. You can do as many or few as needed. For us doing math 2-3 days/week is enough for my kids to understand it. Very reasonably priced about $65/level. Blocks are $35. They offer a free DVD demonstration of their system.

Sonlight has curriculum grade packages (which they call cores) for kindergarten to 12th grade. You can choose either 4 or 5 day per week. The 5 day has all the 4 day plus a little more. I don't know if they offer record keeping or not. Their program is primarily literature and activities with a few textbooks. My friend uses their 4 day and is getting good results. The 5 day may be a bit much for new homeschoolers. They also offer a modified program for families new to homeschooling. The biggest drawback is price. They are very expensive, but considering how many real books you get, it's not that bad. Newcomer packages about $900/grade. However, since you use so many real books, the next child only needs to purchase the consumables, which makes it is much more reasonable overall if you have more than one child. You'll have a very extensive, quality children's library when they graduate instead of just a pile of textbooks.

2010-07-05 15:24:40 by Stacy

Price: $14.99

I am looking for a non-christian home school curriculum that is unit or literature based for my 7yro and 6 yro. I want to include scientific ideas and a modern, rational philosophy to their education. I feel that it is not possible to properly educate a child if you are teaching history or science with the lack of rationality that occurs within most religions. I am not interested in instilling the fundementalist beliefs that come with the christian curriculum. Unfortunately this type of curriculum, one that teaches history influenced by an imaginary man in the sky, is all I can find. I am not interested in the hatred that this philosophy tries to imply. Thank you for your help.
Thank you all so much for your help. It has been confusing so far but ya'll have helped get me started.

There is a blogger who has a listing of secular suppliers. Her blog is titled Doc's Sunrise Rants.
http://docsdomain.net/blog/?page_id=711< br />
You can also do a search for the Waldorf curriculum.
http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/
It is a little bit new-age, so a few items have a "spiritual hint" about them, but all your evolution is safe & ... well, it remains to be seen if it is sound. Anyway, if you don't mind celebrating winter solstice, the rest is secular.

Bluestocking Press takes a naturalist approach to history and government. http://bluestockingpress.com/ It is not conservative. It's not exactly liberal either. They sell curriculum packages for economics for both middle school and high school and have some government class material for high school.

2009-05-10 10:47:02 by Amanda D

I am home schooling my 2nd grader this year and I cannot figure out where I can find curriculums that are not religious. Please help. Thank you.

To the person who said, "What's Christian about math, grammar..." and so on, Christian curriculum includes religious stuff within those subjects. I have a copy of English for Young Catholics and it's all grammar done with religious sentences.

In any case, if you're looking for a full prepackaged curriculum, I know this question has come up before and some ideas were listed but I can't remember what other than Oak Meadow. Maybe do a search in answers for secular curriculum. Other things I know of:

Language Arts: Plaid Phonics, Explode the Code, Phonics Pathways, Writing Road to Reading, Learning Language Arts through Literature, Writing Strands (actually designed for homeschoolers), Sequential Spelling, Spelling Power, Spelling Workout, Language Power, Spectrum Phonics, Spectrum Reading and more.

Math: Actually, there's a LOT out there for math. Saxon, Math-U-See. Chalkdust, Moving With Math, Singapore Math, MCP Math, Ray's Arithmetic, Miquon, Specturm Math, Teaching Textbooks, you can get workbooks and other supplementary resources at any teacher supply store, even at places like Staples.

Science: TOPS science units. Not sure what else. I don't use a formal program for science. And other than Christian moms who might use things from Apologia, I can't think of any specific program other moms use. They just find books of interest at the library, including things with project and experiments. Janice Van Cleave has got some popular and easy books to work with.

History/Social Studies: Again, I don't really know anybody who follows an all-encompassing program for this. They decide what they want the kids to learn and mainly rely on books from the library, but may find some good books at bookstores or through Usborne. DK books are quite good.

2007-07-26 20:06:26 by lost in translation

My wife will be home schooling our 4 children.
2 are old enough to begin this year.
She had her heart set on Son Light curriculum, which teaches primarily through literature and the Bible, but financially it's currently out of the question.
Can anyone give detailed advice on how to build our own curriculum along the same lines on a tight budget?
Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Buy the Sonlight instructors guide and get the books at the library. It will be more work but worth it! Sonlight is an amazing program. We used it for 4+ years. Something to consider.. they have payment plans, and I am able to sell my used on ebay when I'm done with it for about 75-80% of what I paid for it new. It ends up being very reasonable. She can also combine and teach 2 kids with the same core.

Also check Ebay, HSLDA marketplace for used curriculum, and Craigslist....you may find it used.


Best of Luck!
Jana
http://www.purehomeschooling.com/

2008-08-26 20:59:29 by gobster