Curricula tables

[Michael]

I just published several curricula tables on the main site.

The purpose of these tables is to list the available curricula (and books that homeschoolers typically use), and give a quick yes/no as to whether the curricula are secular or not. This is an ongoing project and I will be updating the tables from time to time. If you have any comments, or suggestions for additions to the tables, please reply in this thread.

--Michael

[mchllshrms]

Hi, what about Life of Fred? I know that the author himself is Christian, but I think that the textbooks themselves are written in a secular manner.

[Michael]

I'm not sure - I've never heard of that curriculum. I took a look at some sample pages and they looked generally secular (but for a quote about God in the front), however the index included "The Ten Commandments" - but I couldn't view the actual page to see what that was about.

Hi, what about Life of Fred? I know that the author himself is Christian, but I think that the textbooks themselves are written in a secular manner.

[bella_gitana]

Hello,
I wanted to add the D.I.V.E. cds to the list. I didn't even know they are not even affiliated with Saxon. Unfortunately, I found out when I put the cd in the computer. Fortunately, I bought it used and cheap.
This is their website: http://www.diveintomath.com/dive_math.aspx

~Sara

[Julia]

I recently started using a formal math curriculum with my son. It is called Shiller Math, is Montessori-based and as far as I can see entirely secular. It works well for us. The website is http://www.shillermath.com.

I also bought the RightStart Math curriculum, which is secular as well. Website: http://www.alabacus.com.

Calvert and Robinson seem to be quite popular among homeschoolers and I believe they are not in your list yet. I am not familiar with either one of them. Calvert is secular and I understand you have to formally enroll with the school to use this curriculum at home.

About Robinson I am not sure. The creator of the materials is a Christian family, but I don't know how much of their beliefs they put into curriculum. I would guess some ...

A very nice art activity for kids 3 - 8 years of age is Child-size Masterpieces for Art Appreciation by Aline D. Wolf. It is based on a simple but wonderful idea of playing with postcard-size reproductions of art. Depending on their age and level of advancement kids match, pair, sort and sequence these masterpieces. For my 3,5 yo it's a lot of fun and he can actually identify some famous paintings in other situations. You can make timelines and add more postcards as you wish. I bought these materials at Amazon (there is a parent/teacher handbook and the actual books with postcards that you cut apart).

In the music category I found the books and CDs by Marjorie Kiel Persons "Themes to Remember" quite fun for younger kids. Also available at Amazon.

Best,
Julia

[Michael]

About Robinson I am not sure. The creator of the materials is a Christian family, but I don't know how much of their beliefs they put into curriculum. I would guess some ...

I looked into the Robinson Curriculum, and I'm mildly horrified, but slowly calming down. Their site says that the Robinson Curriculum is a project of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (sounds impressive, but read the Wikipedia entry), though I gather it is essentially the product of Dr. Robinson. Here are a few snippets from the Robinson Curriculum site (there are tonnes more, I stopped reading):

In order to take our country back from the secular humanists - back from those who have abandoned the Christian values and disciplines that made America great - back from the evil that is destroying our society, we must do more in our home school movement than we are doing now.

Children learn their faith, morals, ethics, behavior, work habits, and most other important things by example. The examples homeschooled children follow can be closely controlled by their parents.

Science and mathematics consist of certain truths that people have discovered about the world and universe which the Lord created—simple truths that are within the limited abilities of the human mind to comprehend. They have allowed mankind to see and enjoy aspects of the Lord's creations that were not visible to earlier generations, and they have made possible technology that increases the quality and quantity of human life.

[Julia]

Thanks for looking this up, Michael. Ahhhh, that's more than I needed to know ... Please include Robinson on the curricula review site, so others save their time researching it as well.

[karimc]

I just received Life of Fred Fractions and so far all I've noticed is that quote in the front, and in one other part where it tells the student not to write in the book it lists other things not to write in: library books, hymnals at church, etc. (It goes on to say not to write on the TV screen or your baby brother's tummy too....the book is written with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor.) So far it looks pretty secular to me. I am really liking it so far, it's written in a story format with math concepts sprinkled throughout the book.

I'm not sure - I've never heard of that curriculum. I took a look at some sample pages and they looked generally secular (but for a quote about God in the front), however the index included "The Ten Commandments" - but I couldn't view the actual page to see what that was about.

Hi, what about Life of Fred? I know that the author himself is Christian, but I think that the textbooks themselves are written in a secular manner.

[imperfectgenius]

Wow, what a great idea! Intelligent, secular resources are frustratingly hard to find - but they are out there. It just takes a lot of digging!

The worst is getting excited about a possible resource only to find it has subtle indoctrination woven through it or finally locating secular material and discovering with great disappointment that it's so poorly written it isn't usable. Ugh.

Anyways, recently I went on a quest to find history materials, specially world history. I found several things that might be appropriate to include on the curricula tables:

World History For Us All This curriculum is being developed by San Diego State University in conjunction with UCLA. It's intended for middle & high school students but may work for families with younger-age children, too. It may be worth taking a look because my daughter, age 8, understands most of the material. This curriculum is in development, so the entire program isn't available yet but there is already a lot of finished material that it can be downloaded from the site. Not only is it entirely secular, it's free as well (although this may not be true in the future when program development is completed).

The program is divided into 9 big eras along with two other sections that bookend the program. Each era/section has multiple teaching units and these are offered in different scales - panorama, landscape, and close-up - depending on the amount of time you want to cover the material in and how in-depth you want to go with a particular topic. These "scaled units" can be mixed & matched - you can use a panorama unit to cover Era 1 and then switch to the Landscape units for Era 2. One of the unique things about this program is approach to world history by using three major themes that connect all the events and people throughout history.

NCHS Teaching Units : This is from the National Center for History in Schools, UCLA. The World History units are divided into 9 eras, with between 1 and 10 teaching units in each era. Each unit costs about $17 although they do put some on sale occasionally. The approach here is similar to World History For Us All (perhaps because UCLA is a partner on that project). Although the programs are not identical these two curricula can be used together, as they do complement each other. This site also offers U.S. History in the same manner - there are 10 themes (or eras) with multiple units available in each.

I noticed that it seems the NCHS units are pretty equivalent to the "close-up" units at World History For Us All. Since not many "close-up" units are ready on the World History For Us All site, the NCHS units could be used to fill in the gaps and create a more complete curricula for those who want to get started now rather than waiting for the program developers to get finished.

History Pockets : Evan Moor makes this series that combines history with simple craft projects. The materials are provided to make a folder (or pocket) that can contain all the work, but the materials can be used in other ways, too - for example, a scrapbook of Ancient History. It's also good stuff to add to shutterbooks (also known as lapbooks). This product works well with families that like to keep portfolios and for kids that like to color, cut, and glue stuff! They have two levels, grades 1-3 and grades 4-6, but either level can be used by kids of almost any age. Each pocket explores one subject such as Ancient Egypt, the Civil War, or Native Americans.

While Dinah Zike's Big Books Of History don't offer a curriculum, they are neat (and secular!) supplements for studying history. The books show you how to make hands-on history manipulatives. The second half of the books list various history topics and gives suggestions on how to turn the information into foldables - everything from timelines to mini books to diorama displays and more.

The other resource I'd like to recommend is World History : Patterns of Interaction by McDougal Littell. Yes, this is a textbook intended for school classrooms (which I generally avoid like the plague). However, this one is worth considering for many reasons. Not only is it secular, it's one of the most unbiased texts I've encountered. While no textbook is perfect, this one seems to cover most controversial subjects - including topics like religion, military service, war, historical figures - in an even manner and offers several different viewpoints on each. Whereas other textbooks tend to shy away from such discussions or treat them in a sugar-coated way, this one encourages the reader to explore various perspectives (even the less popular ideas).

Secondly, it approaches information from a world perspective, which means it contains less of the subtle indoctrination that so many history textbooks written for U.S. classrooms contain. In other words, the information is provided in a more balanced way rather than taking a position that supports a particular political or governmental point of view. There are independent, critical reviews of textbooks available online and while many textbooks have been faulted for containing poor writing, misleading or incorrect information, and a dumbed-down approach, this book faired well under examination.

The other reason I suggest this book is because it's widely available on places like eBay, Amazon, Alibris, and other places for about the same price as you'd pay for Story of the World materials. There are several publication years - from 2000 up - and all of the books contain roughly the same information, some editions have different visual layouts and others have revised a small percentage of the text for clarity.

I'm not recommending that anyone try to purchase the entire program as most of the materials are intended for classroom use (overhead transparencies, test practice, etc) and that would probably be a great waste of money. If you're trying to keep it simple and stay on budget, you really only need a copy of the student book. In fact, if you are eclectic homeschoolers or an unschooling family, you may wish to use this book simply as a jumping-off point for activities and exploration into world history. In our house it works like a reference book; for us it's more of a chronological encyclopedia than a teaching textbook (but is much more in-depth than the Kingfisher or Usborne encyclopedias, which we also have).

Oh, I need to add that although this textbook is intended for high-school, the text and wording seems suited to middle school (jmo). I think it would be easy to adapt for younger kids, too. Use it as a spine and go to town with foldables, shutterbooks, crafts, make mini books, check out biographies, picture books & historical fiction from the library, rent documentaries from Netflix or A+ Educational Videos... you know what works for your kids.

Wow, I got long-winded. Ok, I'm done!

PS -- I have absolutely no affiliation with any of these products, when I discovered these materials I was just a mom on a mission! It's important to me that I provide my kids with intelligent, well-written materials that are fun to use and allow them the courtesy of thinking for themselves.

[Michael]

Anyways, recently I went on a quest to find history materials, specially world history. I found several things that might be appropriate to include on the curricula tables:

Thanks for the recommendations and descriptions!

I added the World History for Us All curriculum and the World History: Patterns of Interaction text to the curricula tables.