Sunday, July 20, 2008

Home School Curriculum Update

I think we've landed on most of Jakeb's curriculum. This has been such a major research project!!!

With Anna, we took the "easy" way out and ordered a complete package of 4th grade material through Abeka. It comes with all the teacher helps like lesson plans and answer sheets and all. It's the same curriculum we used with Tori for 4th grade so it's comfortable and I know it will give her the 4th grade education she needs.

With Jakeb, we can't just order a complete package. Well we could but we'd end up with a bunch of stuff that we didn't like so we really needed to customize his curriculum. So we've been digging and asking around to find out what other people like and navigating around tons of websites (some got crossed off just because their website was so horrible). Here's where we're at.

Algebra 2 - Teaching Textbooks
Geometry - Teaching Textbooks
Chemistry - Apologia
World History - Bob Jones
Literature - Progeny Press (this includes vocabulary and reading comprehension)
Writing - Wordsmith (and an outsourced SAT essay course at some point in the year)
Foreign Language (Mandarin Chinese) - Rosetta Stone

We will also test them each online at http://www.kidtest.com/ for $12.95 each to see what gaps they might have that our curriculum choices may not take care of. This will help us know if we need to work on any specific areas that our chosen curriculum doesn't cover or keep us from wasting alot of time on something that they already know well.

If anyone reading this has any input that we need to consider, please speak up quick! I'm planning on ordering tomorrow and it's quite an investment. It's a shame we have to pay for all of this and school taxes too but it's our choice so we can't argue.

2 comments:

praynlady said...

I think you need to have field trips to my house! I want to teach the Chinese class! heehee

K said...

Looks great!

You guys are going to do great!!!