I personally went to public school. My husband was homeschooled for K4, then he went to public school for K5-8th grade. Then he homeschooled again for high school. His two youngest brothers were homeschooled for K-8 and then went to a public high school. When my husband and I were "dating" I once told his mom that I would NEVER homeschool. Oh how things have changed!
We moved to a state neither of us grew up in around the time we got married. I spent most of the next school year substitute teaching in the public schools. By March, I was 100% sure I didn't want to teach in the public schools, and I was was fairly certain I didn't want to send any kids we had to them. Through church, we met many families who homeschooled, and I started to learn about all of the options in our area. Fast forward a few years, and we start having kids. We end up with three kids in four years, and the idea of private school goes out the window. My full time salary would disappear if they went to a private school! So, homeschooling won.
Another reason homeschooling won is because of our oldest. She has a December birthday, but it was clear she would be ready for school by 4.5 yo. At 2, she knew all of her letters. By 3 she knew the sounds. So, just after she turned four, we started homeschooling "officially." Before that, we just used the workbooks from big box stores, library books, and videos. These are the things most families do naturally for PreK.
When it came time to pick a curriculum, I knew I wanted something that was strong and on the "honors" track. I had specific ideas for math, thanks to my pre-kid days of teaching math for elementary school teachers. So, I started with looking at math curriculums. I knew I didn't like Saxon. Rod and Staff looked WAY too dry. ABeka just made me squirm for some reason. I never was able to put my finger on it, but I didn't like ABeka for some reason. I think it is because there is no attempt to be conceptual, which is one thing I really wanted. So, we picked Horizons. We ordered Horizons K phonics, math, and health when my daughter was almost 4.5 yo, and we slowly started the math and phonics through the spring and summer. When public schools went back, we went full speed.
I will say I do like Horizons math. Although the beginning is VERY easy, I am finding most K math workbooks start out this way. The spiral review in the workbooks worked great in K My daughter flew through the workbooks most of the time. Then we hit the 1st grade math. The number of problems on a page increased, and it took longer. I found I had to cross out some of the problems many times because it was just too much adding and subtracting. I started to consider Singapore, but I found that placement would be challenging. The scope and sequence are different enough that there wasn't going to be a smooth transition between the two. So, we have stuck with Horizons, now in the 2nd grade books. We have purchased the Challenging Word Problems for Singapore 2, and we plan on using them when we take breaks from Horizons (Thanksgiving - New Years and maybe in the car on road trips).
As for Horizons Phonics, I have a love/hate relationship with it. For the love part - it is thorough and advanced. By the end of the fourth (and last) K workbook, my daughter had seen the majority of the phonics rules, including r-controlled vowels, double vowels, all of the y sounds, silent letters, and many diphthongs. And the pace really wasn't that fast for those. What I didn't like was how much writing was in the guide. I finally got "smart" and started writing for my daughter. If it was a letter or two per "question," then she would write. If it was words, I would write and she would trace. And if it was sentences, then normally I would just write. The readers weren't a hit either, as my daughter just didn't get into most of them. But again do to the scope and sequence, we went ahead and did Horizons Phonics 1. Phonics 1 contained more grammar (suffixes, prefixes, base words, etc) and writing. We ended up skipping much of the writing lessons, as I didn't think my 5-6yo should have to write paragraphs already. We didn't even buy the 1st grade readers. Instead, we read all of the Bob books and then many My First and Level 1 I Can Read books. By the time we got to the second workbook, I knew that we didn't need to continue with Horizons Phonics after 1st grade.
And as for the Horizons Health - we never did any of it. We still have it, but it seems like things we learn just from life. So it is just collecting dust on the bookshelf right now.
When we got close to the end of K, I knew we needed to add history and science to our homeschool. So, I began looking for options. I originally wanted to do a unit-study type curriculum, combining all of the kids. So, friends suggested that I look at My Father's World. But, the more I looked at it, the more I realized it wouldn't' work, at least for 1st grade. This is because MFW combines phonics and math with everything else. It isn't easy to not do what they have for phonics and math, at least for K and 1st. I stumbled across Heart of Dakota when I was looking online at MFW reviews. I realized that it would work well for us, at least for 1st grade. I did struggle a little with placement between Beyond and LHFHG, but I decided on LHFHG. I realized I was pushing my daughter a lot already, and her love for learning was shrinking. So, going with the more age-appropriate LHFHG seemed like a great option. We did buy the Beyond economy package for reading, spelling and grammar though, thinking we would need it.
We also purchased LHTH for the younger two. They enjoyed doing school when the oldest was doing her K workbooks, so it sounded like a great idea to get them their own thing. But, it turned out not to work great last year with a 3.5-4yo and a 2yo. It was very hard to find a time of day that both the 3.5yo and 2yo were willing to sit still and do school We got through a few units in the fall, and then a few in the winter. But by February, I had put it on the shelf to save for later. We tried again the next fall, and I realized combining the younger two just wasn't a great idea. Hopefully I will be able to use it with just the younger one soon!
Now back to LHFHG for 1st. We started LHFHG as soon as we got it. The first week was a challenge! Reddy Fox was a struggle. History for Little Pilgrims was okay but not a huge hit. I struggled to get my daughter to do the rhymes in motion. I was really concerned about it working out. But, we stuck with it and things got better quickly! My daughter came to love the Burgess books and the history. We ended up just reading the rhymes most week, as the motions were too much of a battle! The rotating box sometimes we adapted. But, overall, we really enjoyed LHFHG. We tried adding in the LA box from Beyond, but I quickly realized it wasn't necessary. By half way through LHFHG, we started the Emerging Readers from Beyond, which my daughter enjoyed. When we finished Horizon Phonics 1, we picked up a Scholastic workbook we had and did the mapping and grammar in it for more writing. Early on, I thought we needed to add science. But, I found library books and videos to be more than enough when my daughter asked. We would pick up a library book or two every time we went to the library. And we would watch Magic ShcoolBus, Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, and Mister Roger's Neighboorhood periodically. Adding a whole other curriculum on top of what is in LHFHG would have been too much!
So, that is our journey from before kids through 1st grade for the oldest. You can follow the rest of the journey in my other posts.
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