Curriculum: Choices, Choices, and MORE Choices

     I guess I should start off saying I am definitely a type-A personality person. I like to know all details of everything and I will research things to death, especially those things that mean a lot to me. I am also that type of person that once I put my heart into something I put everything I have into it. With me knowing this about myself, I have no clue why I thought picking a curriculum for my children would ever be a simple task. For those of you who pick your own homeschool curriculum each year I am sure you know where I am coming from on this. There are so many options out there. You can pick each subject individually, have a complete curriculum set, or get part of a complete curriculum set and supplement more while changing things in the curriculum set. There are so many styles of curriculum also....the main choice being spiral or mastery. I swear to you, as soon as I think I have picked what I want to use for my children's curriculum this year I find something new I have never seen before or I find new research that sends my mind back to square one. So let's discuss some of these options out there.

     So when I started this search for curriculum I had no idea of what I was really getting myself into. I thought I would simply review a few books, find ones that fit my children, order them and that task would be done. I could have never been more wrong on this assumption, and quite frankly I should have known better than for something I am this dedicated to to be so easy. I simply typed "homeschool curriculum" into my Google search bar and a whole new world opened up with a million and one doors to be opened and explored. I have decided I wanted to at least start out with a complete curriculum kit and customize what I felt I needed to with this being our first full year homeschooling and with us being a few weeks behind already. I quickly found Timberdoodle which I was so thankful for. 

     For those of you who haven't gone on to Timberdoodle or are new to the homeschool world I greatly suggest it, especially if you have a kinesthetic learning style child. Timberdoodle I have found is awesome for hands on learners like my son, Baby Boy. Though when you really look at it they have things that match every learning style out there too. One of the biggest things I like about Timberdoodle is the fact that you can customize your core curriculum package (this was EXACTLY what I was looking for). Upon first glance I didn't think there was much I was going to want to change when it came to my son's 1st grade curriculum. The main changes I saw were taking of things like smencils (pencils that smell like food) and The History of the World 1 Audio (I like having Baby Boy read or me read to him and I just didn't think we would get much use out of the audio version). If I had stopped there life would have been simple probably, but hey that is not my style at all. I went through reading reviews on every book that came with the package. Don't get me wrong here, Timberdoodle offers an amazing core curriculum package from what I can tell from reviews of the books (I'll let you know more for sure when we get to order our curriculum and actually use it), but I was glad I took a closer look too. One example was the JUMP Math 1, it was written in Canada. The only issue with this is the measurements in this book are all metric and the coins during the money section are all Canadian coins. I didn't want to have to deal with that. This was the point I headed into the black hole of curriculum lol. 

     I say black hole of curriculum because let me tell you when you get into it you feel like there are so many options you don't know which way is up and which way is down anymore. The first thing I noticed as a major deciding factor was the two different methods of instruction: spiral vs mastery. This is a subject I have discussed with my best friend, Krysten, who happens to be a public school teacher. There are upsides and downsides to both so I want to tell you a little about how we viewed them and maybe it will help you make your mind up on which is best for you child when you start choosing curricula. 

     Let's start with the spiral method of instruction. The best way I know to describe the spiral method is that it basically takes a topic and teaches you a little about it, then goes on to the next topic teaches you a little about, then to the next topic, etc and then you go back and revisit these topics again at a later date learning more details each time the topic is revisited. My son was using a spiral method in his Horizons Math for Kindergarten. There are some pro's to this method in my opinion. One of those being that a student definitely does not get bored with a topic because you study a topic for a short time (in Baby Boy's case 2 days at most) and then you move on to the next topic. In a way it kept him on his toes because we always had something new to work on. If you ask me I think technically our whole public school system as far as grades is a type of spiral method of instruction. If you think about it we introduce topics one year and then give more details about that same topic the next year (especially in subjects like Science and History). The one down-side to the spiral method, I believe, is the fact that in certain subjects, especially Math, you need to master a skill to move on to the next. Watching Baby Boy I also noticed that he would forget certain things because we only covered it for a short time and moved on. He did well with certain things like learning the hours for time. I honestly think he did so well though because after we had moved on I would about once a week pull out a worksheet I had found on clocks and time and make him review it though it wasn't in our lesson for that day. Krysten's take on this method was that it set a foundation for later things to come making it easier when more details came up to recall some of the basics. Overall, I think spiral method is great for children who can grasp things quickly and retain them well. It is also great for certain subjects as mentioned above such as, History and Science, but subjects like Math it can be difficult for a child as they don't really get a good grasp on something before moving on to something else.  

     The mastery method of teaching is simply as is sounds, you master one thing then move on to the next. I believe this would probably be the better option with things like Math as long as you use a cumulative type review to keep things fresh throughout the year. I say you would need a cumulative review simply because I do believe when we don't use a skill set we do in a sense lose it (it's harder to recall the details.) However, if you master a topic as you are really suppose to in this method of instruction then you should know that topic backwards and forwards and not have trouble retaining it for the year. The one thing I could see being a problem with the mastery form of instruction is that a child might become bored. If I end up choosing a mastery form of instruction for Baby Boy's math for example, I am definitely going to supplement with something to make sure he doesn't get bored and stop trying. So, as you can see the decision on mastery or spiral instruction is one you have to make based on what you think would be best for your child. For me it's still a decision I am going between (more on that later though.) 

      As my search for the perfect curriculum for my children continued I started realizing another difference in curriculum choices--how involved the curriculum would be for the teacher/parent. Now me being the type of person I am, I want to be able to really be involved with the learning process, especially with my children being this young. Timberdoodle believes in teaching independent learning from a very early age. From what I can tell so far, you really can choose how involved you are with the Timberdoodle curriculum--if you want to be always involved you can sit with your student every step of the way or you can choose to explain and walk away and teach them to figure it out more on there own. As I said, I have looked into every book and manipulative in the Timberdoodle curriculum for 1st grade and Pre-K. I really like what I am finding so far but feel like I'm doing more explaining than teaching from what I have read at this point. ***Please remember that I do not have this curriculum yet so I could be completely wrong and I will post a definite on it once we get to work with whatever curriculum I choose*** Now I have 3 children so the decision on how involved I want to be is hard for me to answer at this point. If I had a perfect world, I would say I want to be as involved as possible, making decision every step of the way, teaching every lesson to it's fullest. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world lol. I am having to remind myself as I make this decision that not only will I be teaching Baby Boy but his sister JBug will be learning Pre-K this year plus in the mix of all that is my 10 month old daughter who will be getting into everything possible. I believe I have decided now to try to find a balance of teacher led work and independent work. If my plan works (I'll let you know if it does) then I will have things each child can do independently (whether it be education games, worksheets, etc) while I am doing teacher led work with the other. That leads to the question of does the curriculum teach everything I want him to learn. 

     I am lucky and live in a state that is very uninvolved with homeschoolers. We do not have to report what curriculum we are using, test scores, attendance sheets, or anything like that--we just have to register our child as a homeschooled child. I love this because I feel that I can focus on things that need to be focused on and arrange our schedules to fit our family life best. If one week we choose to work 4 days on school instead of 5 we can. I do however want to make sure my children are learning what our public school students know and more. I found with Timberdoodle that they do not start spelling until second grade for example; whereas, in our public school spelling starts as a subject in 1st grade. So there began my search for the


best spelling curriculum. I believe I have it narrowed down to two choices: All About Spelling or Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary 1. From all the reviews I have read both options are great it just comes down to a learning style, though I have read many reviews that say with All About Spelling you should probably wait until 2nd grade to start them for them to have a better understanding and grasp on things. Horizons, for those of you who are interested, reminds me more of a public school type curriculum (other than it is not just writing and rewriting the list over and over just to memorize it). Horizons teacher manual explains the rules of why we spell things the way we do, so it is up to the teacher to explain it to the student and throughout the week the student works on worksheets using the spelling words to master them. I like this idea simply because at the end of the week I want to give Baby Boy a "test" to make sure he has them down and whatever ones he doesn't we will add to the next week's list.  Oh I also have to figure out now whether to do manuscript handwriting or cursive (I read reports stating cursive is best to learn first--but this post is long enough so we will save that for another post (-: )
     As I mentioned earlier Timberdoodle's Math has a part called JUMP Math 1 that would not fit our needs due to it being written in Canada using their measurement system and currency so I went on a search for the best Math program for Baby Boy. He is great at math. He is not the child to memorize though--he is like his mother in this point, explain to me a reason something is and I can tell you all about it and do it all day long, ask me to memorize a page of facts and I might get half of them if I am lucky. With Baby Boy being this way he likes to do his math using number lines---this child can do 10+ math problems in a matter of seconds with a number line in front of him. Horizons taught him this method as their Kindergarten program always uses number lines above their problems. The search for a math program has been a long one that is not 100% finalized yet. I am currently going between 2 programs of study, enVision Math and Horizons Math 1.
     For those of you who aren't familiar with enVision Math, it is published by Pearson and was originally designed for use in the public school systems. Pearson is breaking into the homeschool world now and has made this book available to the homeschool community. I like the concept behind enVision because it uses bright pages, computer work, and interaction to learn math something Clay as a kinesthetic learner would benefit from. I have read many reviews on the enVision Math and have come up with a list of pro's and con's. Pro's: as said before it's bright, cheerful, includes computer work, uses real life math, I like the fact it does have more of a public school feel than just a workbook. The con's so far are as follows: the first grade edition student book is huge in size (they have you tear out the lesson page and it folds into a four page booklet--upside I guess it appears as less work to the student than a huge book, downside that's more time I spend and have to find a place to store these pages plus this huge book they come out of....I'm really not sure why they didn't just make it a normal size book), I have also heard that some had trouble with it because it was designed for a public school classroom (a lot of the reviews didn't get all the access and materials that you would get ordering it which is sad because it hurt the review. They said that somethings they had no clue what to do on because they did not have the teacher guide and they couldn't access the online features.), the teacher's guide is on CD-ROM (I know this is probably no big deal for most but my computer is a new touchscreen version and because of the way Sony built the item it does not have a CD-Rom Drive....maybe if they would offer the things on CD such as the teacher's guide and game for instant download off the internet I would consider it. On the other hand I am not crazy about having to have this big computer just to be able to see my lesson I am teaching. I believe they put it on CD to lower the costs for homeschoolers but I do enjoy having an actual book to look at so I can do the work with him wherever we are at the moment.), speaking of price it is more expensive than Horizons (enVision Homeschool Bundle for first grade is $99, not bad because for me if it is the best for my kid I will figure out a way but this coupled with no teachers edition except on CD might be the swaying factors). As you can see I believe the con's are just a few more than the pro's for me and my family but I am a big believer in you never know till you try.
     Horizons my family knows already. Baby Boy has more than excelled at Horizons Kindergarten Math and we are use to the layout of the workbooks. Though he was successful this past year with it I don't want to just make that the only reason we choose to go back to Horizons. Horizons uses a spiral teaching method very much so and while Baby Boy did fine with it last year I still have my reservations of spiral method concerning Math (the jury is still out on this one for me in other words). While we will have cuisenaire rods from Timberdoodle with his core curriculum kit that we can use for manipulation, I must admit I am disappointed that Horizons doesn't put together a specific package for the manipulatives needed for that year's math. They do give you suggestions on when to use manipulatives in their teacher's edition but it would be nice to have it all there for you. Horizons is also considered advanced in the homeschool world and I believe it as I saw Baby Boy doing a lot of what the First Grade books I have looked at ask him to do last year in Kindergarten. With that in mind I do like the idea of keeping him advanced in Math so I know no matter what the future holds he is set in math.
     Wow this post is longer than I thought it would be but I have one last option to speak on that  I found today sending me researching more before ordering our curriculum. Today I looked at BJU's complete curriculum packages. I really liked the fact that they are so teacher led but as I mentioned before I also must look realistically at what I can do. BJU is used in many Christian private schools and it seems to be a great complete curriculum for first grade. The price is higher than what I would pay for Timberdoodle even adding things to their curriculum and Timberdoodle gives us a lot of hands-on manipulatives that put some fun in learning too. With BJU, I have read mixed reviews across the boards concerning the programs and also concerning is it mastery method or spiral method. BJU offers DVD's for teaching and distance learning which would further increase the cost if you were to use those options--my family would just use the books and I would teach though.
     So I will apologize that this post ended up being so long winded. I would like to put it out there to all of you though for your opinions, preferences, etc. I would love your input on all of this...What would you choose? What method of teaching works best for your family and with which subjects? How do you manage teaching multiple grade levels? Let me here from all of you please.
God Bless Y'all