help me pick a curriculum

[Reha]

Hi everyone,

I have a 7 year old (just turned 7 a few weeks ago) and a 19 month old.

My son has never been to school, and I at heart, I believe in the unschooling philosophy.  It's what we've done from the beginning. 

But, I think I need some ideas and direction.  I am busy, work part time, and don't always feel like I do a great job at coming up with fun things to do with him.  I feel ok with what he has been learning, I'm not worried about how he is doing academically, but mostly want some help with direction and activities we can do.

I'm considering getting the Oak Meadow 1st grade curriculum, mostly because it seems to have lots of hands-on stuff, which my son likes.  I'm not a hard-core Waldorf person by any means, so I like that it seems to be watered-down Waldorf. 

I also looked at the Global Village School, but I'm not sure if that looks as fun.  lol

He loves math, so I am thinking of getting the RightStart Math stuff. 

He isn't reading yet, but knows letters and sounds pretty well. 

I want to find something that we can buy that will allow us to have some direction, but also let us skip the things that he finds totally boring.  I want something fun.

Anyone have any input to offer? 

[Climbing Rose]

I will tell you what works for us.  =)

I believe in unschooling, and I thought we would always do that, but I also wanted a little direction, and in the busyness of life we ofter put learning 'academic' things on the back burner.

So, we bought a curriculum that I really really like, and then just use it in a relaxed way.

For instance, DS-6 has a little science book that covers a bunch of different things, and has pages to color and activities to do.  I just let him bring it to me and we do whatever lesson he is most interested in.  He loves it and would do the whole book in a week if he could!  He also loves his math workbook.  He works on it all he can and is really learning. 

I have found having the set of 'textbooks' (for us) really helps give me an idea of what to do.  If something is not really exciting, we skip it, but if it is something we have never covered, I will at least mention it and give them an idea of the subject.

(It's also great when they already know it!  Then they feel smart and I feel like I am doing a good job! =)

To give a little flexibility, I bought different levels for the DC to choose from too, not just the one they are supposed to be at.  It's only my oldest DC that likes to stick right at his level for some reason.

We use Rod & Staff, but you could do what we do with about any curriculum.

We also have a lot of living books and art supplies around.

I also used to like to use Sonlight as a reading list and just go to the library.

For reading, I have used "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons."  We skipped a lot of it (the writing practice, etc) and honestly, I found it annoying and twaddle-like.

All my DC have liked the Bob Books, but they are kinda annoying too!  =P

My favorite is Alpha-Phonics.  It's a red book, about $20, and starts with 'a' and goes all the way.  We just skip what we want to and use the rest, and it works great.

Anyway, hope that helps!

[Leersia]

I started with Oak Meadow, but even through we had used a Waldorf preschool, this curriculum really didn't resonate with us.   I was really casting around between K and first grade for something that I could use in an easygoing way, and when I started to look into the Charlotte Mason-inspired Ambleside Online curriculum, I just knew it was for us.  AO is overwhelming at first, but you can start just with getting a few books from the reading lists and then learn as you go.  It is Christian, but it is very easy to adapt as a secular curriculum.  It's also free (you have to buy or borrow the books yourself though - many are easy to find used and inexpensively).  We LOVE it so!  Great, great books and other resources. . .

Best wishes. . .

[Reha]

Leersia,

what didn't you like about OM?  Just curious.

Thanks for the reponses!!

[Leersia]

I only used the K curriculum, and honestly I hardly remember it (my boys are in third grade now), but . . . .  I think that they didn't really care for the circle time that was such a big part of it, and I didn't really enjoy reading what I would consider to be contrived stories in the manual.  The first grade curriculum may be really different, I don't know.  But I would at least take a look at AO - when I saw the reading list for that, I knew that it was exactly what I had been looking for.  YMMV - lol. . . .

[onyxravnos]

I love love LOVE OM but other good choices are books from Sonlight or winters promise. Winters promise has some excellent looking hands on stuff :)maybe lapbooking would be up your DC's ally?

[homeschoolingmama]

Right Start Math is a good fit for what you are describing.  A lot of hands on and fun.

We unschool but buy the Sonlight Cores because the books are so delicious.  We don't follow the schedule but have the books for the kids to grab or for me to read. 

Sonlight Science is pretty cool because there are a lot of little experiments that come with the supplies unless they are household like a plate.  We have grown lima beans, used a 2L bottle to show how air shrinks when cold and expands when hot, grown mold etc.  It is hands on and you can just pick which experiments you are interested in.

We have BOB books for learning to read and my girls like them.  If they didn't, we would move on. :)