Hello,
This will be our first year homeschooling. I have a 1st and 5th grader with a 1 year old by my side. Both were in private school and used Abeka curriculum. I just have a few questions.
My 1st grader struggled with reading in K. I’m wondering if I should stick with Abeka or try something different. The main problems she was having was transposing letters and guessing words while reading.
My 5th grader has done extremely well with Abeka and absolutely loves math. She’s excelled as a student. I plan on switching some things up for her because I wasn’t happy with history, science etc. However, math is her favorite subject and she’s done extremely well. I, on the other hand, have never been great at math. I’d like a program that’s self guided, however, not at the risk of her not progressing. I’m wondering if I should stick with Abeka for her or try something different. I had her do the practice samples on teaching textbooks and she wasn’t a fan. But that could be because she was itching to get back to her Legos. My husband’s a math whiz and could assist, but only in the evenings and weekends.
Any other tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m terrified!!! But, we’re all extremely excited.
Erika
Welcome! We just finished up our first year of homeschooling, so I still feel like a newbie! Lol. I don’t feel like I have too much advice to offer, because I’m still trying to figure out what curriculum I like.
I will say that teaching textbooks has been wonderful for my 4th grader. I did the placement test and had her use 5th grade. She did really good with it. My 2nd grader used horizons and I regretted it all year. It was such a struggle to get him to do math and I didn’t feel like he was understanding some things. We finally bought and started TT3 in April and it was a huge difference!
We also loved Heart of Dakota and used that for history, science, poetry and bible.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your opinions. Boy, this is tough. So many options.
For letter reversals (which is perfectly normal at that age) there’s a free packet from All About Reading press with activities you can try. http://info.allaboutlearningpress.com/letter-reversals
I would stick with Abeka with your 5th grader if she’s doing well with it and likes it! But, you might try supplementing with Kahn Academy, which is free online (I think there’s a free app for it too), and is self-guided.
If you’re looking for something new for History, Story of the World is what we use and I think it would work well for both a 5th and a 1st grader. It’s a good spine (and inexpensive), and very engaging. I supplement with library books, free printables online, videos on youtube, and a really cool Science of Egypt resource I found on Teachers Pay Teachers (just search “Science Egypt” there if you’re interested and you’ll find it.)
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Thank you so much. I’ll look into your suggestions.
