12.8.10

Recommending Curricula

I need some help, fellow bloggers.

I'm trying to put together a list of recommended curricula for a friend of my mother's. Here's the thing, though. She comes from a Pentecostal background. She has three children that are very close in age (10 in October, 9 in October, and 8 in January). The oldest two (10 yo boy, 9 yo girl) are both doing third grade this year (in public school). She plans to either pull them out mid-year when they move back home to Mississippi, or at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year. She will want a Christian, YEC perspective, and a lot of things she can combine. She also is working with a limited budget; there's no way she could afford to purchase a package like MFW, WP, or Sonlight, is my understanding.

Most of this falls outside my area of expertise! Here's some thoughts I've had. Please tell me how they'd work, and offer more suggestions!

Rod & Staff grammar (I thought she could possibly start all of them in the third grade book and keep them together)
Apologia Elementary science
Mystery of History
Spelling Power (my understanding is that you need one book for all levels?)
Writing With Ease, probably starting all three in Level 1
Handwriting... A Reason For Handwriting?
Math... She (the mom) is really good at math, so she doesn't need a lot of hand-holding. At the same time, I don't think Miquon is the best fit and they're not ready for Life of Fred. What's a good basic, relatively inexpensive mid-elementary math curriculum?
Literature... I thought I'd point her towards the Ambleside Online booklists
Music - Classics for Kids podcast
Art - I outsource/d grammar-stage art appreciation. What's a good source here?

I thought I'd also mention CLE as an option to her. I don't think she's wedded to a particular approach. Her oldest has some learning difficulties (hence the reason he's in the same grade as his younger sister) but I don't know what they are/how they play out - they were caused by birth trauma (life-flighted to Memphis from Mississippi just after birth, may have had severe meconium aspiration).

Help me help her! She definitely wants to 'afterschool' until they can start homeschooling, so I'd love for her to feel like she has a good place to start. :)

3 comments:

Dottie said...

I don't have too many suggestions since I also come from a different POV but she should check out MEP math . http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk It's free (except for printing costs). There's a yahoo group to help in working out placement, etc. and it's a pretty intensive course.

Daisy said...

CLE would make an inexpensive math that is rigorous, but it is consumable. She MUST have them take the placement tests. A lot of my homeschool friends like MUS so she might look into that?

You are correct about Spelling Power. You only need the one book but it is $60 so she'll want to consider how long she plans on homeschooling before making the investment.

She may not need a handwriting program if she does WWE. It had dictaton and copywork. She can just assign them additional copywork from the literature or other core subjects.

I never buy art. I just pick library books from the history period.

You can send her my email if she wants more options. BTDT, won the t-shirt for growing up in a Pentecostal preacher's home.

Jonnia Smith said...

I actually have a copy of Spelling Power that needs a new home. I bought it used to look through, but decided to take another route. Use the email link on my profile page if she wants it. I can ship or pass along to you on a Wednesday if I can ever figure out who you are having never even seen a photo!

Singapore Math is inexpensive and really good.
http://www.singaporemath.com/ I use the Standards edition. Workbooks are consumable; softcover text is reusable.

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