Do you know that the concept of kindergarten dates back to the 1700s? It is Friedrich Frobel who had coined this term which means a garden for children.
Over the years, that garden became a learning ground for kids. As soon as your child starts to walk and talk, you consider sending him/her to a kindergarten school. But what if your child is sensitive and doesn’t fit into traditional schools? In that case, you should look for homeschool options.
But before selecting one of the programs, it’s best to do a background check of the curriculum. Here are a few factors that you should keep in mind while shortlisting a used homeschool curriculum.
• Common core – Common Core is a state standard in the US for K-12 students. It states that the students should know both mathematics and arts in English by the end of their school grade. There is a great deal of controversy around Common Core, which has driven many to Homeschooling.
• Christian Education – Apart from traditional learning methods, Christian education asks students to see the world from God’s perspective (Biblical).
One of the primary lessons in this type of education is from the Bible. It tells students to think about the ultimate truth and how God perceives things.
• Accredited program – If your child will be going to college, you will want to ensure that the homeschool curriculum you choose is accredited once they reach high school.
Best Used Homeschool Curriculum
Some parents like Common Core, while many others do not. The focus of some is that the education is faith based, while others have another focus.
Here are some of the most popular homeschool curriculums that offer detailed education.
1. Abeka
With over four decades of experience in homeschooling, there’s no doubt that Abeka is one of the best when it comes to Christian homeschooling options.
It offers a comprehensive curriculum that not only has high standards but also teaches focuses on the Biblical worldview. They use engaging textbooks that come with easy-to-follow lesson plans.
In addition to children, there are free online resources for parents also. The curriculum not only limits to preschool students but also extends to high school students as well.
The kindergarten curriculum consists of the Bible, music, spelling, writing, math, language arts, and science. Many Facebook groups that post about used homeschool curriculum state that Abeka’s vast curriculum makes it easier for students to learn from an early age.
It develops their foundation, often times resulting in higher scores than public school. If you are happy with Abeka, you can go ahead and enroll your kids in an online accredited program for their higher studies.
Abeka being a virtual school provides transcripts and online report cards. Some of the other features of their kindergarten curriculum include quizzes, tests, exercises from textbooks, and daily lesson plans.
Students’ previous work will determine his/her grade level placement. Your kid will receive an evaluation and report card once he/she finishes a grade period.
Every year, Abeka arranges an annual graduation ceremony for graduating students. They receive a free transcript after completing their grade period.
2. Time4Learning
Like Abeka, Time4Learning is another renowned homeschool program that provides an extensive curriculum that helps your child build a solid foundation in science, language arts, and math.
This is also an award-winning curriculum that suits kindergarten students the best. It allows kids to learn at their own pace so that they don’t feel pressured like in traditional schools. Most of the curriculum in kindergarten paves the way to learning in elementary school.
One of the best things that parents in Facebook groups of homeschool education talk about Time4Learning is they have tons of fun activities for every subject.
Their math curriculum, for example, consists of various themes that help children to recognize numbers up to 10, learn concepts of what is more and what is less, learn to sort objects, develop basic skills for addition and subtraction, and create basic patterns.
On the other hand, their language art curriculum is spread over 22 chapters. These include the concept of developing awareness for letters, recognizing letters with specific sounds, awareness of the relationship between words to sentences and letters to words, recognizing sight words, and developing vocabulary by listening to unknown words.
Moving to their science curriculum, kindergarten students will learn about living and nonliving things, heat energy, energy sources, exploring the universe, and animals. All the sessions are very interactive with hands-on projects and fun songs.
Every child who enrolls for Time4Learning will get access to educational games specially designed for playschool and kindergarten. They will also get printable worksheets so that they can spend their time on additional practice.
3. Sonlight
Sonlight provides the first taste of American history to students right from kindergarten. Their curriculum includes stories of important events and people in American history.
It helps students know more about their country so that they can serve their nation well. That’s the thought process behind this type of curriculum. Sonlight is Christian based homeschool curriculum. They provide carefully-chosen books that talk about American history in the form of stories.
In addition to American history, their curriculum also contains Bible learning. The curriculum-makers have selected some of the best lessons from the Bible and put them out in a story format so that students learn about the lessons from an early age.
Like Time4Learning, Sonlight also has a similar curriculum that consists of language arts, handwriting, science, and math. Each curriculum touches the basic concepts so that your child doesn’t face challenges in his/her elementary years.
For example, language arts contain spelling and vocabulary, handwriting consists of a foundation of letter formation, science with engaging experiments and hands-on projects, and math with manipulative block systems that introduces the concept of addition and subtraction.
4. Apologia
Apologia is another organization that has an award-winning used homeschool curriculum. It is best for students who have a knack for science from an early age.
Parents often come to know about the subjects that their children excel in. If you think that your child is a science prodigy, then it’s best to enroll him/her to Apologia. Their curriculum is widely popular because of innovative activities.
With Apologia, you don’t have to think twice about how your kids will learn from home. A conversational approach makes it easier for students to learn new topics easily. In fact, the best part about their curriculum is they don’t limit their learning to science only.
They also expand on teachings from the Bible about the world as God created it. The texts and illustrations help young students to understand even complicated lessons within a few days.
According to many reports on Apologia’s used homeschool curriculum, traditional school students fall short of knowledge and experience when compared to homeschool students from Apologia.
This is primarily because of the curriculum design and immersive science topics. The chapters are fun to learn, giving students the much-needed enthusiasm to move on to the next topic right after learning a specific chapter.
Their curriculum follows a spiral approach. This allows students to learn about multiple science topics within a short period. The depth of the knowledge will grow as they become older. This way, students don’t need to learn anything new for a long time. They hone their skills on the chapters they already learned in kindergarten.
Now that you know about all the accredited homeschools in the US, you can compare the curriculums and enroll your child in one of these schools.
