Curriculum or not?

[lovelymama2]

Hi, my daughter and I are doing our first year of homeschooling this year (1st grade). She is attending a public school one-day-a-week homeschoolers' enrichment program and for the rest of the week I'm currently limited to around $200 for curriculum and materials. I know that the Christopherus curr. for 1st grade, if we buy it without the joyful movement book, would be around $160 then that would leave a little bit for materials. I don't really like the idea of eurythmy so that's ok, I think? But I'm wondering if instead of buying the curriculum we should just focus on materials. The problem with that is that I feel that for us a little bit more structure would work. My daughter has had a very trying, unsettled and emotionally difficult summer so we need some kind of rhythm and structure. We do have the explode the code first three books and she's not really too into the "sit down and do a worksheet" type of thing. So far our plans do include learning to hand-sew, knit, and she wants to bake a bit too. Any ideas? We do have the First Book of Knitting for Children and Sewing School and lots of ideas from Rhythm of the Home magazine.

[Lillian J]

There are so many wonderful things you can spend the money on - I'd skip the curriculum and keep a lookout for things like those you can find in the FUN-Books catalog. and in museum gift shops, etc., and there are lots of great books in libraries on every imaginable subject. Rhythm and structure are things you can easily accomplish without them being part of a curriculum. One morning can be the one when you go to a library; there can be a regular time when you do a craft project; one morning might be your baking morning; one afternoon can be your regular group playday or park day; one time of day can be when you take your walks, when you read to her, another time when good audio recordings are played, etc. There's not all that much a 1st grade age child needs in the way of studies or practices - I wouldn't worry about worksheets getting done so much as getting her to feeling settled and relaxed again.   Lillian

[jeteaa]

we also do a pubic program (parent partnership program). One thing to look into is: for our PPP if we use the money to buy anything non consumable (ie books, software etc) the PPP owns it and we have to turn it into them at the end of the year for another family to check out. So you might want to spend the money on say paint or music lessons and use your own money on books and curriculum so you could re sale that when you are done.