Posted on 07/24/2008 10:19:49 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes
Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009
A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information
Once again, we are reviving our Free Republic Homeschool Forum where homeschoolers can share tips and talk about curriculum for the upcoming year.
Below is a list of educational books, curricula, and other resources recommended by homeschoolers on Free Republic. This list was compiled, updated, and reformatted using the suggestions many of you gave on our last thread. (If any corrections are needed, please advise.)
Feel free to add more of your favorite books and products to the comments below. Which curriculum has worked well for your family? Share advice with other homeschoolers.
A big, hearty CONGRATULATIONS to all homeschoolers who graduated this year!
And, as always, many, many thanks to Jim Robinson and Free Republic for the continued support!
The Science Spot says it is a middle school site, but it has some worksheets that are good for physical science (sometimes taught in 8th grade, sometimes in 9th, sometimes at a more advanced level in 11th)...answer keys are given for most worksheets, and there are also some links to interactive sites.
I'm not sure about lower grades, but college textbooks can frequently be purchased through Amazons' used book section quite inexpensively.
(If I was the last person in the world to figure that out, pardon me for butting in...sometimes I've gotten new books much cheaper than the price of used books at the college bookstore, and with 2 in college it helps considerably...my favorite "game" at the beginning of the semester is "beat the bookstore's prices")
A friend of my kids said that she bought the used books so cheaply on Amazon, that she made money selling them back to the college bookstore.
I believe that...as I say, I love buying the books online just to see how much more cheaply I can get them! (although the bill is often a “gulper” either way...)
It’s like going to the dollar store. Yeah, it’s great, everything is a dollar...
Until you realize you just spent $40.
I haven’t had a chance to check out Abeka biology but I know it has good lab manuals.
I’ve peeked at some BJU. Some higher schools diss it, because it is Christian oriented (aka not big on evolution) but I found it was one of the few curricula that I didn’t have to outline and make extra handouts. It has good natural outlining built into the text.
Apologia was a big disappointment to me. I guess it’s good if you have no science background, because the book is a running conversation. He comes from the reasearch analytical background, but I found my kids didn’t process it into memory as well. It’s good if you can’t figure out how to do something.
People have told me for Physics the Apologia text is good. I didn’t like it for Chemistry.
A good site for used curriculum is vegsource. It’s vegetarian site, but for some weird reason they have a huge homeschooling swap board.You have to search for it, I never can find the link when I need it. But I’ve bought lots of cheap curriculum from there.
Also, as I said I teach science. I’ve found older editions are MUCH cheaper. People hold over from their college days, when they found if they had a early edition it made problems. But if you are doing the work by yourself, it doesn’t matter if the pages or problems don’t mesh with others.
I actually tell kids to bring in older edition books to my class, and we just share the problems. I’ve found the text doesn’t really change that much. Just the colors and page numbers.
We purchase almost all of our books through Amazon. Before buying, I either preview the book online (sometimes I find previews on other sites if Amazon doesn’t give one), read the reviews customers post, or go to a store and review the book myself. Still, sometimes the books aren’t appropriate after all. In fact, I’m in the process of returning a few for a refund now. That’s why I find the recommendations here so valuable.
After reviewing so many books (and now returning a few), I now keep a warning list of books to avoid and the reasons why. I don’t want to forget which books I shouldn’t purchase. That reminds me, eventually, I’d like for us FR homeschoolers to share information on books to avoid, too, as most of us are probably buying online.
Thanks, I know other homeschoolers who use Vegsource, too. It’s listed in the links above under “Homeschool Forums, Stores & Swaps”, but I haven’t tried it yet. Most of the homeschoolers where I live are natural foods enthusiasts and vegetarians. Maybe that’s why so many homeschoolers are there.
I may be one of the few people who didn’t resell her college textbooks. I kept all of them, so we have college textbooks on geology, for example, but nothing on biology!
I noticed PBS sells a video series called “Core Biology”, but it’s very expensive, and I don’t want to spend the money without knowing if it’s appropriate. That reminds me, we need a DVD/CD category. If the packages are opened, they can’t be returned for a refund, so it would be good to know which are OK to buy before purchasing.
Home School Classifieds.......
website for posting curriculum like vegsource
I can’t believe Mystery of History by Linda Lacour Hobar from Bright Ideas Press is not on that list.
Horizons Math....
I'm sure there are many other good homeschool resources missing from the list, too.
To All Homeschoolers: Feel free to continue to add your suggestions here so that others will see them and they will be added to the next list.
Adding to the list: “The Story of the World” (History):
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/childsworldhistory.html
We had some curriculum changes this year that are not already on the list.
Drive Thru History (by National Day of Prayer and Focus on the Family)
http://www.drivethruhistory.com/
Character Quality Language Arts (aka CQLA)
http://www.tfths.com/cqla.php
Teaching Textbooks (mathematics 5th grade and up)
http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/
Real Science 4 Kids
http://www.arn.org/realscience/realscience.html
I LOVE the DonnaYoung.org website. It is an excellent resource for beginners (and not so new homeschoolers) for organizing your homeschool.
I have friends that use Homeschool tracker ( http://www.homeschooltracker.com/ ) with good results.
I was wondering if anyone else used Calvert. We’ve been using it for six years. (My kids are starting 6th and 4th soon.) We haven’t yet figured out what we’re doing for junior high and high school. Calvert only goes through 8th, so I know a big change is coming sooner or later.
What I like best about it are the lesson plans. Everything is covered and nothing is missed. Some people might not like the “school style at home” approach, but we turn and twist it around and make it more interesting than that. ;)
Does anybody have a source for basic grade level assessments/requirements?
The Core Knowledge series uses a series of books that tell what you need to know at each grade level up to, I think 8th grade.
State academic requirements are also of use as a guide to minimum standards.
Additionally, there is in Worldbook Encyclopedia a webpage which has a general outline for course of study for k-12. http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum
hope that helps.
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