Posted on 10/15/2015 4:48:41 PM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear
My main recommendation is to understand you are homeschooling, not public schooling. You taught your child a lot of things before he ever stepped foot into a PS. You can do this! The first year, I'd chill and figure things out. I am going to give you some inexpensive recommendations that I hope help until you figure out what you are going to do, and how you will do it. As important as curriculum, is learning your style, and your child's style.
HSLDA Several people have recommended HSLDA, they are giving you great advise.
When one of my grandsons was in 8th grade, we read a lot of unabridged classic literature appealing to boys.
AMBLESIDE has free online books and curriculum. Kindle has a lot of free books, including Ambleside books.
Easy Peasy See Cathy Duffy's review on this curriculum.
Natural Speller This is also available online at places like Amazon and Ebay.
Some of the Mastering Essential Math Skills books come with very short lessons on DVD. This will be an inexpensive way to get started without breaking the bank. They make good drill books.
This is too expensive for us, but we use it to get ideas! SONLIGHT
We have used Rainbow Science and really liked it. The experiments are easily done with things around the house. This program never really took off, I'm not sure why. We thought it was a sound program.
BASIC COZY GRAMMAR This is a to the point, not time consuming grammar program. The lady is a bit ditzy, but she gets the point across. We watch a DVD lesson on Monday, it's about 10 minutes long. The rest of the week consists of daily worksheets for the lesson of the week. If a child struggles with a topic, we re-watch the DVD lesson. This isn't an insanely time consuming program. We like the basic, to the point method. It frees our time to write and use this stuff where it matters. It can be used for more than one year, and there are other leveled lesson programs. If you get Basic Cozy Grammar, make sure to have a plate of cookies for Day 1!!
The all-one-curriculums are popular among some homeschoolers. We have used the Little House series, Learning at Home series, and the A World of Adventure series. We frequently utilize lapbooks, notebooks, and unit study techniques.
Enjoy your child!
FRegards
em
1) In many respects I agree with imardmd1. I believe you should carefully read his/her post and carefully consider the points he/she made.
2)It is my observation that **all** ( yes, ALL) academically successful children are homeschooled. This is true regardless of whether they are institutionalized for their schooling or strictly homeschooled. Why?
Answer: Academically successful institutionalized children have parents who are highly disciplined and dedicated to the education of their children. They have parents who are doing **tons** of pre-schooling and after-schooling. Their home habits and study routines resemble those of parents who are successfully homeschooling.
3) You mentioned social problems with your son and the institutional school. Are there also academic issues?
If your son is also struggling academically, them please re-examine your **home** routines and **home** study habits. If they are not matching those found in the homes of academically successful children ( either homeschooled or institutionally-schooled) then these will absolutely need to change.
4) Finally, I do wonder. Your son is in the 8th grade. Why have you waited so long? Is the only research you have done on homeschooling is to ask a neighbor and to post a request on Free Republic? It makes me question your decisiveness and ability to problem solve.
Academically successful children ( either institutionalized or schooled at home) have parents who are **aggressively** proactive in solving problems at their first appearance.
We used Rod and Staff curricula up to 8th grade then switched to Abeka. The problem with Abeka is the math. It spends way too much time with the wrong kinds of things for kids to get proper exposure to math. I got through a year and a half of college calculus in pursuit of a Math major and didn't do half as much algebra as the Abeka book had. The Geometry book is even worse.
Abeka is wonderful on History and social studies and science because it is such a strong Christian perspective. My 18 year old has 10 times more knowledge of history than I do at this point after going through that book.
We learned that it is very literally easier to teach your child to read than to teach him/her to do the dishes.
We use Abeka and Saxon Math atm. I find them to be quite good and my son likes them. He finds it a little difficult because teachers have been giving questions to the tests beforehand. He’s actually having to learn HOW to study.
We probably should have used Saxon, I’ve heard lots of good things about it. We curve their Abeka math grade up one grade.
Saxon is methodical and repetitive.....but there is ‘a method to the madness’. We have a supplemental DVD for the lessons in case we need extra help.
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