I use K12 because of the depth and breadth of the curriculum. Their middle school courses are outstanding. However, if a child is weak in grammar and comes into using K12, they’re going to be in for a shock. K12 starts grammar (and usage and mechanics – “GUM”) in 1st grade and builds upon it.

Anyway, check into it. We’ve been using K12 for five years.

http://www.k12.com

We unschool – sort of – use unit studies as a way of tying curriculum together and fitting more facts into each day without sacrificing fundamental skills, and subscribe to the idea that the only way to learn to write better is to practice, e.g. write a lot.

My child has special ed reading, writing and memory disabilities. Most of the reading was assisted by a computer which “read” the printed text of the books out loud. Writing was sometimes assisted by Dragon Naturally Speaking, but was most often done “naked”, with no spec ed supports or accommodations.

For 8th grade English I had my child reading lots of historical novels about American History and then copying the authors’ styles. Each “paper” was reviewed for grammar, composition style, and essay fundamentals. Rewrites were an everyday occurrence.

We also used timed writing drills to channel creative and technical writing skills into succinct pieces; and journaling to keep the ideas flowing without the pressure of being perfect. The writing quality in both improved dramatically over the year.

I use Sonlight curriculum with my daughter. We’re currently in core two. Sonlight is a wonderful program covering all subjects. It is a literature based program with read alouds where you read to your kids, and then they have books they read. It’s got a very good grammar program and everything is lined out very well. My daughter is only in 2nd grade and is already reading level three books. I know not all kids are equal, but I think it’s due to Sonlight. It’s helping her love literature. She’s already heard and read more books than I believe most 2nd graders have. Currently, we’re reading “Ginger Pye” and we started the year with “Red Sails to Capril”.

History is not Americentric, something I really appreciate. Last year we looked at world history up to the Byzantine Empire and had some great Usborne books and others to look at together. This year we reviewed and began to move forward, with the beginning of the Muslim religion and life in Europe and we’re now looking at the Vikings.

We suppliment our curriculum. Math is Schiller Math (a montessori program). Handwriting is A Reason for Writing.

Geography with Sonlight is great. There’s a book and a CD with songs about the different areas of the world. My kids like it and my daughter knows the countries of the Middle East already – not just names, but where they are.

Sonlight is anything but repetitive and boring.

I would take a look at Bob Jones University Press Curriculum. It will not be all you need but it will be a good start. Check out Wordly Wise and Rummy Roots. All of those with a good literature and reading plan should do the trick. We used BJU for most things save Math and that we used Saxxon.

We just finished or last child and she is off to The Masters College and her English Professor called last week and said that she is the best he has seen in a while. I will stand by these things but there is so much out there to look at and choose from.

I homeschool an 8th grader and am not impressed w the Abeka curriculum. What do you use and why
http://homeschoolingfaqs.com might help

Total Language Plus

I use A.C.E. School of Tomorrow. The grammar is great! You could contact the company and they will send you a sample book. If you do choose to use them make sure that you test your child first. This curriculum starts the child exactly where they are at even if it is in the middle of a grade. And you can have them go back and pick up concepts they may have missed. The testing shows where they need this help and where they need to start.

Personally I do not believe in home schooling unless it is due to a medical reason. The child looses out the companionship of others which is important to the child’s future life unless you are a qualified teacher in all the subjects that you will be teaching. From what I have seen on Answers math questions would be out of my leauge and I took 3 years of math in high school but that was over 65 years ago. But my suggestion would be to see if you can find another family that has done home schooling in you child’s age bracket or school grade.

I put together my kids yearly curriculum from a variety of sources. For English my 9th Grader is using Hewitt Homeschooling’s “Lightning Literature”, they have an 8th grade level also, but if your child is a slow reader it might be a little too reading intensive for him or her. You could look it over at http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com but just to give you an idea of the reading expected, here are the books covered in the 8th grade year:

“Treasure Island” by R. L. Stevenson

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

“A Day of Pleasure” by Isaac B. Singer

“The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien

“To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee

“My Family and Other Animals” by Gerald Durrell

“Stories and Poems fore Extremely Intelligent Children” compiled by Harold Bloom.

As you can see the reading is of a challenging nature, but an interesting variety. The other thing about Lightning Lit is that you would need to add Grammar and Spelling to it because it is primarily a Literature and Composition program.

If Lightning Lit looks like too much, I suggest Total Language Plus. You get the choice of which books (from their offerings) to cover, and generally cover fewer per year than with Lightning Lit. Also, Grammar, Composition, Spelling, Literature, etc. are all covered with Total Language Plus. There is one teachers manual for all the student books, then you pick between 2 and 4 student guides to cover, based on how intense you want your program to be. Many of the student guides cover 1 literature book, but a few cover several. You can look at them and read descriptions of the programs at http://www.totallanguageplus.com

Another good one is Progeny Press Literature guides. LIke total language plus the have the advantage that you can hand select which books you think your student would be most interested in, unlike Total Language Plus they don’t include Grammar Study. A Good and simple Grammar program is the “Straight Forward English” Series.

Total Language Plus, Progeny Press Guides, and the Straight Forward English series are all available at http://www.rainbowresource.com

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