I posted last week and we were trying to decide about homeschooling.
Well it is a definate YES. YEAH... (dancing)
My only problem now is curriculum.
I have narrowed it down to A Beka or Alpha Omeha Lifepac. I went to a show for A Beka today and the man really had me sold on the DVD package.. it would be 1300 for the yr for 2 kiddos. It is a lot of money.
The more I think about it I wonder... it is a lot of money. I previewed some of the DVD's and I am not sure that I like the idea of my kiddos sitting in front of the TV learning.
BUT on the flip side I feel as though the things they covered were great and that I could not teach that way.
I feel as though I would be slighting my kiddos but it also seems very advanced and I don't know that (after K) they are ready for the 1st grade portion of it.
Any insight would be great!
Blessings!
Answers:
Hi there!
I'm so glad you've made you're decision to homeschool. I'll continue praying for you as you make your decisions, such as this one.
I will mention that I explained your situation and asked my mom for her opinion before giving my answer. Our family has used both A Beka and Alpha Omega Lifepac in the past years, so hopefully I can give you a good answer.
I would recomend Lifepac for you and your kids. First, Lifepac is an incredibly cheap curriculum, unlike A Beka, as you've already seen. Lifepac gives you a chance to work one-on-one with you're children. This allows you to move forward quickly if they understand the concepts and are ready to move forward. One downfall to Lifepac is you have a lot of paperwork to grade.
Here's a first hand experiece story from Lifepac. My mom used Lifepac for me when I began school. I tell you this because she was pretty much on her own and she was a new homeschool parent. When I got into second grade she got pretty scared because the teacher's manuals are set up completely different and a lot of the work is done just by your kids. Please, try not to make this a fear factor for you. You seem to know other homeschooling families in your church that could help you. So therefore, if you run into a problem, which I doubt very much, you will have someone to turn to.
You might find that at a later time A Beka is a good choice for either one of both of kids. If they like talking and socializing this might be a better choice for them. I wouldn't recomend it though until atleast 4th grade. A Beka's downfalls are the price and the amount of paperwork to grade.
Now, here's a first hand story for A Beka. My mom has used A Beka dvds for the past two years for my brothers that are now in 3rd and 5th grades. The program she found was not beneficial to the younger when he was in 2nd. He was pretty much lost throughout the year and really hasn't done too much better this year either. My other brother, on the other hand, LOVES it. He enjoys it because of the "socialization" (he is the biggest social butterfly you will ever meet!)
So, basically, I'd recomend the Lifepacs, and if you feel the need maybe switch your kids to A Beka.
Oh, and my mom wanted me to mention this to you. When she was in school, she never undstood phonics and when she started homeschooling me she pretty much relearned it right along with me and finally understands it. She basically wanted you to know that you should never worry about not knowing enough to teach your children. Plus, in my opinion, it's more fun to have your parents learning with you.
I hope I've given you enough information to help you make your decision. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me and if I don't have an answer I can always ask my mom. Again, I'll be praying for you as you embark on your journey.
Blessings to you and your family!
why don't you feel that public schooling is a good idea and you can just by books from toys R us that teach about math and geography and all that, theirs no reason for you to pay 1300 dollars for an education that can be free or that u can do yourself. their are also some good books on home schooling that you could by if ur not into the a beka thing and don't know how to teach it.
I use both in my home. I like Abeka for Language Arts and some history, but I also use Life Pacs for History. I would not recommend Lifpac for Math. We are going to use Math U See next year, it is more hands on, my kids love it. We also use another curriculum that is AWESOME for science. It is Apologia. It is an immersion program for kids in elementary and older kids have a text book approach but it is written to the student. My kids have thrived on it and love science now.
I would not get an all CD program for my kids. They would go nuts in front of the TV for that long. They are definitely more hands on.
Don't worry so much about "slighting your kids." Home schooling is a lot different than "regular school." You have to deprogram yourself and your kids. Read up a lot on homeschooling. You usually can find books that encourage at the library. I had to be lovingly told to "chill out" by a good friend when I first started.
Feel free to email if you would like!
Welcome to the world of homeschooling! I agree with Melissa. You could do both. I'm homeschooled and use Alpha Omega for all of my subjects except Math and electives. I also use Math-U-See and like it. I think it's not good to have only on curriculum, so use both.
For starting out home schooling, I would advise to take it slowly in making curriculum choices. The used curriculum sales are full of things people have purchased and barely used.
My advice would be to buy one subject Alpha Omega and one subject A Beka and then see which works the best.
We have used Alpha Omega Lifepak for history and it worked well for a subject that I did not have to 'teach'.
We now make our own curriculum using library resources, online resources and used textbooks. This allows us to use free media to go along with reading, worksheets, and interactives.
I'm happy for you! Homeschooling is great!
I did A Beka from grade 2 onwards, and I really liked it, especially History, Language,and Health. From year 8, I was put on Saxon Advanced Maths, because the A Beka highschool maths are a little basic, but the rest is top quality education. I found that I had more general knowledge, and retained more than my public-schooled friends. Some students find that there's a little too much review and repetition in A Beka, but we were allowed to skip that as long as our test & quiz results were high enough, I guess they are quite thorough. For most of it, I didn't have any DVD lessons, but my mother was an excellent teacher when it came to her children! During high school, I got to do most of the lessons on my own from the books (though Mom was always there to assist when needed). I don't know much about Alpha Omega, but as I already mentioned, A Beka was fun and thorough!
K... You're just starting out just like me, right? (grin)
Except that I've taught some other people besides my son before.
This is my 'home school package'. It's not going to be exactly what you want (every home schooler is different/ every home schooled child is different), but it's a lot cheaper than the whole DVD package.
I don't have the money to do the whole A beka DVD package, so I've used a couple of their basic books. "Fun with Pets" and their 1st grade Math.
If you do this you'll might have to make practice sheets to make sure you're little learner knows how to write all his numbers before you start on the math ( Don't worry about how awful your writing is it doesn't matter at this point in time.). It will also help to make sure your little one understands less and more and equal to (You can do this using cups of water, apples, candy or whatever.)
After you go through the A beka reader, you can start reading pretty much any simple kids book, remember to point out any "special sounds" to them as you read along. At this point in time you might want to purchase a few more A beka books, some for letter/ word practice, and make up your own spelling lists doing ten word a day. Start with all the words in the reader and move on to words you want your little one to be able to read fluently, words that come up a lot in things you are reading.
There is some schooling I do, that can't be called formal schooling, and that's looking at things the kids are interested in and reading about them (ants, trains etc...). The books can be acquired at the local library and they're free. You can also do things like bake muffins or cookies and involve the kids through the whole process.
Once your little one can read and write words. It's time to start learning to write sentences. Do one sentence a day in a "journal". You can also get your little one to write the date at the top of the page by writing the date and having them copy it. Getting your little one to draw a picture and write a sentence about it is another option. Expect it to take a couple months before your little one can write anything without your help.
It's not until grade four that you might want to add formal History and Science books, and by then you probably will have encountered many many more options and supplemented with other programs/books.
Good luck. Remember to trust yourself. You can do this. You taught him to walk, to talk, to go to the toilet. You can do this too!
I did Abeka for many, many years, and it was by far the best curriculum I have used! The books themselves are colorful, vibrant, and fun (not boring ol' textbook style) but yet informative and packed with facts. Their math really helped me with my math skills. I have always been "not-great" at math, and their math was one of the things that kept me motivated. Their science is amazing; it has in-depth colorful pictures of all kinds of things. It makes it interesting to actually see what the book is talking about. Their English is WONDERFUL!! I really enjoyed that! Abeka teaches things like spelling and vocabulary along with their English, and it increased my vocabulary immensely!! But, above all, their History is PHENOMENAL! I have done their History throughout all of my schooling, and I must say, they really did make History come alive!! By the time I went on vacation to the East Coast when I was 8, I knew exactly what to look forward to and be excited about! I was telling the tour guides things about the places I was visiting!
I also did the DVD series for some subjects when I was in early highschool. I did Science, Bible, English, and Algebra. Their teachers are FANTASTIC!! They're so much fun!! By the end of the year, I felt like I was really in the class along with the "real" students. The teachers weren't your "cut and dry" regular teachers. They were funny, informative, and not afraid to change things up. The algebra was nice, because it was something my mom wasn't as informed about, so I had an actual Algebra professor showing the steps to kids like me who didn't have a clue about math. The Science class actually did science experiments. The English class memorized poetry together; the Bible class memorized verses. All in all, it was an amazing course. It helped keep me on a schedule and made sure we actually finished the book (something homeschoolers rarely do)!
I would highly recommend Abeka books. Because of how phenomenal they are, I'm able to graduate at age 16 and be accepted to Baylor University and U.T. They also had me prepared to begin taking dual-credit courses at age 14. You really can't go wrong with Abeka.
I have done A Beka before and it is an excellent program for children. It's worth it in my opinion.
Since you are just starting, I would use something a little less expensive. However, if the information is too advanced now, they will grow into it and it can be used later.
You can also try looking on Ebay or Amazon for some used curriculum. You might even have a lending library in your area, contact a co op and they might be able to help you with that.
I am going to use Lifepacs this year. I want to use Sonlight, it is a reading based curriculum and I think my oldest will flourish with it. However it is more expensive and since we are only starting out and doing K this year I opted for something a litte more tradtional and cost effective.
My sister in law is a retired Teacher and now homeschooling her 3 girls. She swears by A Beka. She used it in the private school she was ta and now her girls are learning well from it. I also hear that Saxron math is good too. Good luck.
I have been homeschooled since the first grade I am now a Junior. My sister and I used A Beka when I was in the sixth grade and she in the first. We didn't use the videos but I felt that A Beka was extremely difficult to learn, especially Arithmetic. In the seventh grade we switched to Alpha Omega and I did all of my work with Switched-On Schoolhouse on my computer. That whole year in Math I felt like I was doing review, everything had been covered the year before. I believe that A Beka was advanced and I had trouble because I had jumped a level in a sense. I am still using AOP's SOS as is my sister and we are both doing very well, one of the problems however is that while we type fairly well our handwriting is not as nice as it should be. I prefer AOP's SOS but do wish that my handwriting had been nurtured more.
I've never done A Beka before.But AOP is going well for me.I've learnt alot through it,and grew closer to God!Why not pray and ask God about it?
A Beka is a great program
A Beka is great! i loved it... but Saxon is terrible.. incredibly stressful! don't do that whatever you do!
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