What is the best strictly secular curriculum?

[baby-makes-3]

I am looking for a super-fun, creative, nature-based curriculum for elementary age that is not religious-based. I like Oak Meadow, but don't agree with a lot of the Waldorf-inspired spiritual side. Not knocking it! Just saying it's not for us and we're wanting something very similar and not so fairy/gnome-intensive .

I know we could still pick and choose what we want from any curriculum, and I could create my own, but I get easily overwhelmed and would be happy to pay a reasonable price for someone to do it for me.

We like The Little Acorn, but it doesn't go much past preschool-stuff.

Is there anything like this out there?? Any help would be much appreciated!

[Lisa1970]

You could try to build your own program. Also, I have heard good about Enki. A lot of people use Calvert, but it is not as relaxed as Oak Meadow or nature based.

[Lisa1970]

http://www.enkieducation.org/

[EviesMom]

We really like Moving Beyond the Page, and I know many who use it with Right Start Math. Together they cover all the required stuff.

[mom2ponygirl]

I have never found a 'complete' curriculum that I liked enough to use as is without tons of modifying. I've found it easier to just build our own.

A couple of things I've liked:
www.rfwp.com the best language arts books by Michael Clay Thompson, approximately grade 3 and up

www.artofproblemsolving.com - best high school math anywhere

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm Great free math curriculum K and up

www.singaporemath.com very good math and science (secular science is hard to find!)

K12 offers a complete curriculum and is pretty good but fairly expensive to buy on your own. It is important to not get hung up on doing every little activity with this curriculum or you will get overwhelmed. It will provide a good education but you have to tweak it to fit your kids style.

I wish there was a great one size fits all answer, but really I think you end up saving time by building your own stuff. I'm starting year 7 of homeschooling, and while I always hold out hope of a miracle curriculum, I've come to realize its not so much the curriculum as it is the approach. The more time we spend discussing books read together, digging into projects to build or science questions to study, the better our daughter's 'academic' skills improve. You can take pretty much any book or curriculum and if you approach it with enthusiasm and a sense of fun you can tweak it into something fun.

Good luck! I'd suggest the yahoo group secularcm (secular use of Charlotte Mason like approach) for good ideas for starting. As well as the living math and living science yahoo groups.

[deditus]

Originally Posted by Lisa1970

http://www.enkieducation.org/

Yeah, I think I will be going mainly with Enki. I will branch out into more stuff if dd requests it, but for now I want a strong spiritual, physical, emotional rhythmic base. And I feel fairly strongly about delaying academics.

[Marimami]

I've found the charts here to be quite useful:

http://www.hsfreethinkers.com/curricula/sciences

Click the Curricula link at the top to view programs for different academic categories.

Holli

[onyxravnos]

calvert is ... okay... and defiantly secular but i wouldn't recommend it. Moving Beyond the Page on the other hand is quite nifty. Oak meadow is waldorf inspired but is not strictly waldorf so the objections you have with waldorf may not apply?

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by onyxravnos

calvert is ... okay... and defiantly secular but i wouldn't recommend it. Moving Beyond the Page on the other hand is quite nifty. Oak meadow is waldorf inspired but is not strictly waldorf so the objections you have with waldorf may not apply?

This I used OM1 with my now 8yo, and didn't see any of the more traditional waldorf anthrosophy (or however it's spelled/called) it didn't seem to have a spiritual side at all really bar maybe a few lines in the heart of learning.. which are easily disregardable!

[Jennifer3141]

Originally Posted by onyxravnos

calvert is ... okay... and defiantly secular but i wouldn't recommend it. Moving Beyond the Page on the other hand is quite nifty. Oak meadow is waldorf inspired but is not strictly waldorf so the objections you have with waldorf may not apply?

This is exactly how I feel about doing a year of Calvert. It is exciting to get everything in those boxes but man, were we BORED by week 50. We never did finish a lot of it. I just couldn't get into it. It's so school-y. We looked at K12 and came to the same conclusion. It also just wasn't challenging enough on the sciences. And a lot of it didn't pertain to us. My kids won't have to figure out how to climb out the bedroom window from the second story if their bedroom catches on fire. We co-sleep. We'll be there to hand them out our first story window. They wanted to learn why a centipede had so many legs or who "invented" fire.

We've built our own stuff this year by doing History Odyssey, WTM science for 1st and 2nd grades, Artistic Pursuits, and a lot of GOOD reading. We're going to read The Hobbit together this semester and maybe start Lion, Witch... in the winter. Our writing practice comes from, well writing.

Enki wouldn't work for us. I've got two kids who like HARD facts and real pictures. We enjoy our fairytales but we want to touch, measure, and feed real animals, not watercolor ones. And circle time? My kids would flip out. We, loved a Waldorfy early childhood. It was gentle and sweet and I never would have known about the fun of playscarves without it. And I made sure no one ever mentioned the religious stuff around my secular kids.

There is so much awesome stuff out there. You'll find your way, BM3!