Curriculum Reviews

Well, we are almost halfway through our school year so now would be a good time to review the homeschooling materials we have.  First we have been using Alpha Omega Publishing's Horizons math.  At first I was hugely impressed.  The lessons are colorful and engaging and they integrate the review problems right in with everything else.  However as we went further into the year, my son became more and more frustrated.  For him I think it might just have too much review.  It is a lot of busy work for him and not enough to keep him fully engaged.  He tends to pick math up very quickly so having to re-practice that many problems a day just became a battle for him.

Now for Science and Social Studies we started out using Alpha Omega Publishing's Lifepacs.  I decided very early on that I really don't care for Lifepacs.  I love that they are Christian based, but they are very wordy and put a high focus on memorizing vocabulary while I prefer a more hands-on learning experience for him.  I also found the curriculum to be very lacking in pictures which is horrible for my very visual learner.  I found myself having to read the lessons to him with my laptop at my side so I could google illustrations to help him understand what they were talking about.  Really I was adapting it so much that we quit after a couple of units and started just using science and social studies related books for a while.

Here we are halfway through the year and I am struggling to get him back on track.  We signed back up for Time4Learning which I really think is the best thing for us right now.  We are using it primarily for Math and Language arts and some for Social Studies.  For science we are trying out The Simple Homeschool's online interactive unit studies.  We are working on the Solar System Unit right now which is a tad over his head since it is for sixth graders and he is only in fourth grade, but it is on sale right now for only $5.  Really he seems to be enjoying it and we will probably sign up for a full subscription soon so we can access all the different unit studies on the site.

Meanwhile, I am going to sell what is left of my Lifepacs and Horizons and stick with more computer based school for now.  Really, Horizon's Math is great and I still highly recommend it, but unfortunately isn't a great fit for my Little Man.  Lifepacs on the other hand, I was not very impressed with for any child and I don't recommend it.