|
Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum
|
Question:
We sure would appreciate any input re: curriculum for kindergarten
and first grade. What have you tried? What was worthwhile and what
wasn't? I know of the "big" names but don't know how actual users feel
about them. Is there a web site that reviews most of the options out there
or some other review source which may be helpful to me?
Answer:
-We used A-Beka materials. We currantly have 2 boys in K-5. Well to be
honest, our boys were in 1st grade in Public school but when we
started H/Sling using the A-Beka we decided to back them up a little.
A-Beka also has K-4, K-3, and I have saw some K-2. Of course the K-2
is basically large picture books.
WHATEVER you decide to get, I promise you it is better to stay with
one brand of material. We spent an extra $60.00 to get the daily
planner book that has your lesson plan daily in them. A time saver
plus you know where your children should be at any given time.
-We have used Alpha-Phonics to teach reading to our 4 year old
when we felt she was ready. She is now 5.5 yrs and is reading
very well and getting better every day. We really like the simple
format. We also bought the readers that go with this curriculum;
we had her read each of these twice. These were very useful.
I am of the opinion that you have to pick curriculum that fits your
personality. We picked Alpha-Phonics because it was simple,
organized, and didn't require the teacher to do a bunch of preparation.
We like the fact that alpha-phonics teaches the letters in words
from the start and by lesson 3 (if I recall) has simple sentences
for the child to read. It is only 128 lessons. It is inexpensive
compared to some other phonics programs. I suggest that you
contact Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn and get their Encoder/Decoder
book as a guide to reading (decoding) rules as a supplement to
this book. (They post to this website and you should be able
to find them with another post.)
We have used Rod & Staff for math (we just bought the workbooks
and we can figure out what to do with them without directions with
a little thinking); my daughter loves math and enjoys doing her
lesson every day--sometimes she does two because she likes
it. Again, this was inexpensive and organized.
For writing we bought writing tablets and pencils. Each day
we write a sentence on the first line and she copies this down the
page. Sample sentences include:
"You have been good today."
"Papa is working late at work."
"How are you? I'm fine."
"You must love your sister."
Alpha-Phonics suggests teaching cursive first, but we taught
print and are now half way through teaching the cursive letters.
|
|
