I wasn't so sure about them when they arrived, but I thought I should give them a chance, right? Well after about a week and a half with them, Gracie and I were both frustrated. There was this feeling of, "what's the point?" They didn't seem to have any content to them. Instead of actually learning anything, they were just full of exercises to complete.
The language arts was ridiculously simple, think preschool level. All Gracie did every day was identify a letter and its sound. Then she would trace it about three times, and circle some objects that started with that letter. EVERY DAY. The teacher's manual had no extra activities to supplement with. Then, they threw in all this confusing stuff. For example, for the letter "N" you were supposed to circle a picture of a knee. I checked the answer key, because I thought maybe they were trying to throw the kids off. Also, for the short "e" sound, they included a bunch of "ea" words, like head, bread, thread. Ok, what about when they read the words bead, meat, seat? Really poor quality in my opinion, which was disappointing, since it's an award-winning curriculum from a major publisher.
Then there was the math. It was all over the place. It followed no logical sequence, even though it was touted as a mastery-based program. One day you counted to nine. The next you were asked to identify the numbers smaller than 83. What? that came out of nowhere. No intro, no learning more than and less than, it just appeared on the next page. Horrible.
So that brought us back to square one, and the continuing search for "The One". I've really been trying to get outside the box. I have this vision in my head of the "perfect" homeschool set-up, a largely Charlotte Mason-inspired model, with lots of books and free time to read and explore ideas, craft supplies on hand, time to get off on tangents inspired by a particular interest. But when it comes time to buy books I chicken out and stick with the model I know, using workbooks as a crutch, fearful I might miss something, fearful of what people will think.
This time I decided to just go for it. I'm tired of worrying what someone might think if I don't have my kids tied to some workbooks all day. That's not homeschooling. I'm really sick of snide remarks and inferences that some day I will wake up to find my kids are social and academic morons. My friend Ramona put it best: "kids learn in spite of us". So true. You can't stop a kid from learning, even if you try. It comes as naturally to them as breathing. So with this in mind, I purchased Five in a Row. It's a different system than other curricula, and it was developed by a homeschool mom who is also a former teacher, which was a big selling point for me. A lot of curricula sold for homeschooling is the same thing used in conventional schools, which isn't what I'm looking for. Five in a Row is literature and unit study based, and it's more of a guide than an actual curriculum. You read one book(most are available from the library) for five days, focusing on a different "subject" each day. One day you study the geographical location of the story, the culture,the customs, the food. Then you put your "story tag" on the map to see "where you've been.". Another day you focus on the language of the story, learn some vocabulary words, and some spelling words. There is also retelling of the story through artwork or a craft to ensure comprehension, and dictation of a passage to practice handwriting. Another element of the story might lead you to study an area of science. You get the idea. It's more of a holistic approach, with each subject tying into one story, just like each subject ties into real life. It's not compartmentalized like a textbook, and it's highly customizable. If you read a story about China, and you really get into it, you can run with it and dig as deep as you like. You don't need to "do the next page" tomorrow. You can stick with something for a week, for a month.
The author is clear that you need to supplement with math and phonics programs, which is fine. This time I'm trying Adventures in Phonics from Christian Liberty Press and math from Modern Curriculum Press (I'm not totally opposed to workbooks, I just don't want an ALL workbook curriculum). Both the phonics and math have gotten good reviews as solid programs, and the phonics sample page included grammar rules, which was important to me.
I'm really looking forward to trying something different, and Gracie is too. It should all arrive this week, so cross your fingers for me...
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