Catholic Homeschool Curriculums?

[tortoisetuus]

My oldest is going to be 5 later this year and I am trying to make a decision about what kind of homeschool curriculum to start out with. Right now I'm looking at a lot of Catholic curriculums and online academies and I am overwhelmed by the number of choices out there. I was wondering if anyone who has used one can give a personal recommendation or caution. We are religious but not nearly as conservative as a lot of the homeschool curriculums with a Catholic bent seem to be; some of them seem to be anti-anything post-Vatican II and that weirds me out a bit as I have no problem with Vatican II! I am liking the looks of the Catholic Heritage Curricula but I am not sure yet. I really would like to hear personal experiences and recommendations!

[Lisa1970]

I always hear about Seton and people being happy with it. Other choices are Kolbe and Mother of Divine Grace. Those are supposed to be good too, but more expensive. I like Kolbe and Mother of Divine Grace's math better than Seton. But Seton is a good overall program for a reasonable price.

[frugalmama]

Originally Posted by tortoisetuus 

My oldest is going to be 5 later this year and I am trying to make a decision about what kind of homeschool curriculum to start out with. Right now I'm looking at a lot of Catholic curriculums and online academies and I am overwhelmed by the number of choices out there. I was wondering if anyone who has used one can give a personal recommendation or caution. We are religious but not nearly as conservative as a lot of the homeschool curriculums with a Catholic bent seem to be; some of them seem to be anti-anything post-Vatican II and that weirds me out a bit as I have no problem with Vatican II! I am liking the looks of the Catholic Heritage Curricula but I am not sure yet. I really would like to hear personal experiences and recommendations!

We are 75% done with Catholic Heritage Curricula for Kindergarten, so I can answer any questions about that program to the best of my ability. We did the lesson plans as a guideline, but tossed the Who Am I? religion program as DD didn't like it and just read saint stories and a kids bible from time to time. I have to say it is VERY easy to teach from CHC, but it can have quite a bit of prep for some lessons {normally religion}.

We like CHC and Seton for the early grades mostly, for older kiddos I'm not sure yet as mine is only in K.

[KimPM]

We use Sonlight and modify it to fit our Catholic worldview.  Works for us, so I just wanted to let you know there are other options than going with a program from a Catholic publisher.  When I was looking at specifically Catholic curricula, I found them to be pretty rigid for our needs, so that's why we went with Sonlight.

[jest]

We are doing kindergarten this year although I ended up moving onto first grade material for some subjects because my son is an advanced reader.  I'm also pretty eclectic, so rather than go with one curriculum I tend to pick and choose. 

I started out the year with a lot from Catholic Heritage Curricula (CHC).  The "Bible" and Who Am I? were pretty simplified for my son's level of understanding.  I switched to a different children's bible and we moved through Who Am I? pretty quickly and then I just started teaching catechism from the St. Joseph First Communion catechism, and we read a lot of Saint stories.  I did use the Little Stories for Little Folks phonics program, but instead of spreading it over two years we finished it in a little over half a year.  I also supplemented with Catholic National Readers and MCP Plaid phonics.  The CHC handwriting just was not working for us because it is designed to go along with the phonics program...and since we moved so far ahead in phonics but not in handwriting it seemed kind of random and he hated it.  So we switched to Handwriting Without Tears which is working well for us, and even though it is secular I use a lot of prayers or bible verses for copywork.  I also chose a different math (RightStart) which is working well for us.  So...while I do have the CHC lesson plans...I ended up buying both the pre-k/K and the first grade plans, and there is a lot of great information and tips, I really ended up not using them.  Having said that, I am considering using CHC language arts next year (I will use 2nd grade material for my advanced first grader) and I'll probably use them for 1st Communion prep.

Like the pp, I also used Sonlight for history and read-alouds, making some adjustments.

I've been feeling drawn lately to some of Charlotte Mason's philosophy and next year I may follow some of the recommendations from Mater Amabilis, which is a Charlotte Mason style curriculum for Catholics.

[DiannaK]

I have a PDF saved about Catholic preschool/kindergarten, and it's from Mater Amabilis. We're planning on using Memoria Press K curriculum, and I will supplement from the MA things as well. 

I'd be happy to send it to someone, if you PM me. 

[frugalmama]

Does anyone know of a easy quick source for quotes and phrases for a K student for copywork? DD will be going form K to 1st in the fall, we are already using CHC so I don't want to start that before school starting in August, but I want some daily work to help her keep her skills up over summer break. We're using CHC 1st grade lesson plans as written with all materials, and she HATES repeating things so I need things that aren't in the 1st grade plans. We need enough to cover about 50 days worth of work, with a short line each day.

Any ideas?

[Tjej]

Psalms?  Pick 50 of them.

Tjej