So there is a mom who homeschools and she puts on the web all of the things she teaches them and how she does it. Well she made a complete curriculum for preschool and pre-k but she wants people to pay for it. Which i can understand its not like she is getting paid to homeschool her own kids. But im wonder is it worth paying for or should i just make my own similar to hers. Here is her website confessions of a homeschooler.com should i buy or just make my own?
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I love her curriculum. To me, it was worth the 20ish dollars to pay for it (can't remember-it was a few years ago). I bought the Letter of the Week CD. Sure, you could come up with it on your own, but it would take a long time. I would rather pay than spend the time gathering.
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I personally wouldn't buy it but that's because I don't buy anything sight unseen. I looked at the website and I didn't see any examples of the curriculum or even an outline of what you are getting. Maybe I missed it.
A few years ago I used a free curriculum that rotated every year in 2 year rotations from PreschoolPalace.com and it was very good. The kids liked a lot of the crafts and the activities and you simply downloaded the PDF file by months off of their site.
They have since then combined the "best of the best" of both years together and will be charging now. It's now one 10 month curriculum instead of two 10-month curriculums but at least it includes everything from monthly themes, letters, numbers, shapes, colors, activities, circle time activities, recommended books crafts, some worksheets etc. and they are only charging $12 or so. By no means is it ready-made (as in like MTG or The Learning Box where the craft and activity supplies come in the box) but at least the lesson plans are made for you in advance and they provide a sample of a day of lessons as well as the 10 month of themes/curriculum at a gllance. When I used it, it was easy for me to use their outline and curriculum and add to it and remove from it as I needed/wanted.
Now that I am going back to my own curriculum (I decided to stop using TLB after this summer) I plan on using the PreschoolPalace curriculum outline as a guideline again. Even if I was looking to buy a curriculum that was already planned out for me $12 in not a bad price at all for an entire 10 months of activities.
I don't know that I'd want to pay $20 per section for the homeschool one in the original post considering that all I'd be getting is the "Letter of the Week" curriculum. I'd still have to plan out shapes, numbers, colors and all of the other extras for a full preschool curriculum so for me at least, it wouldn't be worth it.
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I have purchased a couple of her items for my own kids in the past. While the content is good, it just seems like.....well....too much, kwim? Her free printables are only about half what you would get in the download, which seems like more than enough to me. Maybe it's just me, since I don't feel sitting a 3-4 yo down with a ton of worksheets is going to teach them their alphabet more than dancing to the abc song and pointing out the big C on the Cheerio box, etc. (small disclaimer: I'm an unschooler now! )
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It's actually not that hard to make your own curriculum. You just do a web (like a brainstorm) by doing a KWL (Know, Wanna know, and at the end Learned) with the kids. You (or the kids) pick a broad subject (like "birds" instead of "eagles"), the things they know about it, what they want to know about it, and then at the end what they learned. You can make a curriculum based on different the domains Social, Physical, Cognitive (intellegence), Creative, and Emotional (an easy way I remember it: "variety is the S.P.I.C.E. of life"). And like everyone said pintrest helps ALOT!
Sometimes you can also find "filler" ideas or curriculum related coloring pages, activities, and other things from parenting/women's magazines. I LOVE 'Woman's World' magezine, they have lots of recipies, inspirational stories, business/beauty/organization/money saving tips, as well as seasonal and random activities you can do with kids- even simple and cheap home made halloween costumes (less than $2 a week- less if you subscribe).
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If you don't want a religious curriculum, this one is probably not for you. The Letter of the Week (from what I remember) includes everything math, reading, shapes, colors... On the CD, there are a lot of choices, and a lot of worksheet type things, more than I would want to do with this age. I just chose what I wanted each week. However, now that I have Pinterest (and a younger group), I use that If you have the time, making your own would be best. You know what and how you like to teach and you know the kids and their capabilites.
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Originally posted by jenn View PostIf you don't want a religious curriculum, this one is probably not for you. The Letter of the Week (from what I remember) includes everything math, reading, shapes, colors... On the CD, there are a lot of choices, and a lot of worksheet type things, more than I would want to do with this age. I just chose what I wanted each week. However, now that I have Pinterest (and a younger group), I use that If you have the time, making your own would be best. You know what and how you like to teach and you know the kids and their capabilites.
PS I'm going to send you a PM for your Pinterest so I can follow you. I love looking at other FCC boards
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Originally posted by MarinaVanessa View PostSee, I never would have known that just from reading the website info. The website is very vague and doesn't say what's included in the letter of the week curriculum and so I assumed that it was literally just about letters.
PS I'm going to send you a PM for your Pinterest so I can follow you. I love looking at other FCC boards
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I've got a bunch of free stuff off http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ and its all been really good! You can buy whole curriculums, I never have so I can vouch for them, but the prices/materials vary and there are user reviews.
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