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sunny
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| Posted: May 25 2009 at 2:33pm | IP Logged
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I am planning to use CHC 1st grade for my ds5 (6 in Nov)
I don’t feel too freaked out about beginning something "official" because I think you will understand when I say that in a sense, we have been "home schooling" since birth. However, until recently I didn’t plan to use a curriculum. I had ALL kinds of GREAT ideas! But I got concerned because I often have great ideas at night and then wake up with a blank! Also, I ussually do things as it occurs, so I decided on the curriculum as a “jumping off” place. I hope to not get overly concerned if we don’t follow it exactly. I enjoy rabbit trails. However when I am at a loss, I will have a guide. Does this make sense? Does it seem like a good/doable plan?
My next concern is how easy is it to adapt CHC? For instance, ds was/is interested in learning cursive first. (He could be persuaded to ditch that plan, but now I am pretty into it myself) I see that many here have enjoyed the new American Cursive from Memoria Press. Would it be possible to incorporate that with CHC and still retain the way that the phonics etc is all related to the stories in CHC?
I have learned so much from visiting this forum. I would appreciate any input!!!
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teachingmyown
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| Posted: May 25 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged
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I am terrible at following a curriculum, but always end up buying one!  
The nice thing about CHC is that you can just use it as a guide. Open the lesson plans and see what you would be doing each day if you were following it exactly. Then, you plug in what you are actually using, whether that is different handwriting, different math, different phonics.
It is inexpensive enough and full of little extras like the chore cards and memory gems, and there is lots of helpful advice.
Sounds like a great plan!
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krystab
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CHC is really easy to tweak for me. I need the structure of a lesson plan, but I also need to be able to tweak! They leave you plenty of room to do it right on the plan.
We did first grade before they had the handwriting with phonics included and we did have to supplement with additional phonics work. So if you decide to go with another handwriting program you may need some extra phonics work too.
1st grade starts with the second set of readers and your child is expected to know several double letter sounds. My daughter only knew single sounds coming out of Catholic school K so we had to start at the beginning with a quick review.
The lesson plans do follow the liturgical year and expect you to start in September and not miss any weeks. I have had a problem keeping on track with this in the past. Now that we use the workbox system and actually do the work regularly it shouldn't be a problem.
HTH....I always feel better with someone elses plan to guide me....even when I end up butchering it.
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DD-00', DS-02', DS-04', DS-07', DD-09', DD-12'
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sunny
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| Posted: May 25 2009 at 10:46pm | IP Logged
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Oh I am so thrilled to get your responses. So comforted...thank you. You both think it easy enough to incorporate or swap out other programs with CHC - that is great to hear. Even so, I still cant help asking if you ever feel you are missing out. I mean doesnt it seem ideal to have it all totally integrated?
Maybe if there are others who have used the New American Cursive and CHC, they can chime in regarding Phonics?
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krystab
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| Posted: May 26 2009 at 12:13am | IP Logged
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sunny wrote:
I mean doesnt it seem ideal to have it all totally integrated?
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Yes, ideally! But every year I tell myself that I am going to stick with their plan and keep it simple for myself. They designed it so it would flow from year to year and to be complete if you do it all. Then as time goes on something is not working, so we scrap it and find something else. Usually because one part of the plan is either too easy or too hard. Maybe if I had just stayed with CHC from the beginning it would be easy to keep with the same plan....but the grass was always greener!
Next year we are going back to CHC and I am going to try very hard to stick to the plan....but we also love Heart of Dakota so will probably end up mixing some of that in.
I actually didn't tweak CHC when we used it. We didn't end up doing all the science and social studies, but those are non-core anyway. It is everything I tried since that has been a problem except Heart of Dakota. We really liked CHC so I don't know why I felt the need to move on.
Both my now 9yo and my current 7yo wanted to do cursive early and at first I wanted them to do it too. But in the end I stuck with the printing first. I don't think it is a detriment either way and we did so much other stuff that the cursive wasn't an issue after all. It seemed like a big deal at the time, but......neither ended up caring. But were very excited once it came time to do cursive.
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Krysta
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DD-00', DS-02', DS-04', DS-07', DD-09', DD-12'
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time4tea
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| Posted: May 26 2009 at 8:55pm | IP Logged
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I am using CHC for my two dc in 4th and 1st/2nd (dc has a Fall birthday, so she is combining grades). CHC is very flexible. Just white out the area in the plans you want to change, and write in your change. My 1st/2nd grader will also be dong cursive along with the 4th grader, and I will just write those changes in to the plan. We also use MCP math workbooks, and I will just write that in as well.
Also, just to let you know, CHC has a nice mom-to-mom support feature at their website that answers a lot of questions about using CHC specifically. You can ask questions and Theresa Johnson or one of their curriculum authors will answer your questions directly. It's a nice option to have!
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ALmom
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| Posted: May 27 2009 at 9:30am | IP Logged
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Deleted this cause I edited and accidently double posted. See next post.
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ALmom
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| Posted: May 27 2009 at 9:39am | IP Logged
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We use CHC for K - at least 3rd and modify as needed. It is easy to modify. The one thing I'd do is look ahead at the liturgical stuff and be prepared to adjust. We start school in early August so we are automatically off on that but we will jump from some things to particular lessons or activities during a feast day. Other things like the workbooks, generally don't fall on the feast as we do them, but serve as a reinforcement during the year.
We had to modify for different reasons than yours - slow down in the phonics, use the workbooks a bit later and my children were much slower to write and read. If I used a different book, I simply wrote what we did do in the square (there is plenty of extra white space there for this) and simply crossed the week at a glance text out with a single line and wrote in what I did use. We often began very slowly with phonics and phonics games - letter sounds, etc. and then at some point the children just took off and were waay ahead of the plans on the reading. I didn't want to white anything out because I can always go back and look at my old plans and see what was originally there - a different child might be able to use that text, etc.
Memorization is really difficult for my children, so I simply cut out the memory gems and laminated them. I have them on index cards with a label on the back telling me where they were originally found (ie CHC 1st grade) but all of them are in the basket and we simply rotate them out when they are memorized.
This year my son did 2nd and half of 3rd - but by age he should be 4th next year, we just started school late due to eye/vision issues. We move at his pace and I'll probably be doing all 4th next year.
CHC is so simple to use as a guide and then modify. We love the religion supplements and tend to do those as a family - or at least with all elementary.
I just write in my own texts for math and we have had to use a differnt handwriting (print size was our issue with CHC) and I didn't feel like we missed out a ton. We just got creative and maybe used magnets or writing in sand to reinforce phonics. (My children would not have been able to handle the visual business/ quantity on a page of MCP at that age). It was not hard to do.
No matter what I look at for those early grades, with our vision issues, CHC has always been the easiest baseline for us to use. I also love the simplicity of knowing that everything will be sweet and loving (no content to edit or worry about, nothing to Catholicize, no rewording of harshly sounding phrases or ugliness - it is just so right for young, tender ages) and I can focus on our exercises to get our eyes in shape, do what needs to be done and what my children are physically able to do, substitute hands on while eye integration is catching up and never feel stressed or behind. We use it as a loose sequence and go as slowly or as quickly as we need to go in each subject. I usually begin somewhere around age 8 or 9 - basically whenever I need records for the state.
Oh and because of the way CHC is set up, I might be using 2nd plans but substituting the earlier grammar or other texts. I think I did 2nd grade religion with 1st grade reading. They are easily interchangeable - really!
Sometimes, we simply slowed down say in grammar, and we just start the next year where we left off. It is all so easy to juggle and interchange. I generally buy the plans that most correspond to where we are reading wise - but substitute up or down from there.
Janet
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sunny
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| Posted: May 28 2009 at 10:57pm | IP Logged
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Since I have finally made decisions regarding curricula and you have relieved me of my worries about those decisions, I have to tell you that I am getting soooo excited about this!
Thank you all for sharing with me.
And I love the laminating the memory gems idea!
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sunny
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| Posted: Nov 27 2009 at 9:26pm | IP Logged
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We are half way through the year and wondering if any of you have any further thoughts or comments on this thread. Or maybe you can share what is working/ is not working regarding CHC and handwriting.
Personally, I am so pleased with CHC overall! Also ds is doing well with American Cursive! Right now, he is using the CHC speller and even though he is supposed to print the words, he writes them in cursive. Dont be misled, he is not writing at a thrid grade level - a few letters are still in his self-taught manuscript. Even so, it is working out just fine for now. But in my mind as I am looking forward I am back to my original concerns - how will the cursive fit into the CHC phonics and grammar and writing especially next year, grade two when they are so integrated in CHC.
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LucyP
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Sorry to chip in - this sounds really nice. I wondered if you could point me to what CHC stands for? I'd like to see if it is available in the UK.
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sunny
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| Posted: Nov 28 2009 at 8:25am | IP Logged
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LucyP join in! it is Catholic Heritage Curriculum
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ekbell
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I wouldn't worry about it as the handwriting, reading, and spelling/grammar isn't as integrated after grade one.
While all the material remain connected to Our Faith (which my dds have loved) it is fairly easy to make substitutions for just one component.
The grade two handwriting in particular is oriented towards First Communion and Reconciliation preparation rather then phonics reinforcement.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Dec 11 2009 at 3:25pm | IP Logged
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ekbell wrote:
I wouldn't worry about it as the handwriting, reading, and spelling/grammar isn't as integrated after grade one.
While all the material remain connected to Our Faith (which my dds have loved) it is fairly easy to make substitutions for just one component.
The grade two handwriting in particular is oriented towards First Communion and Reconciliation preparation rather then phonics reinforcement. |
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I agree totally here.
Thought I'd throw something else at you that I'm enjoying...I purchased StartWrite after sitting on the fence with it for a couple of years. It makes copywork soooooooo much easier for me now. I integrate copywork and penmanship using this handwriting program. Anyhow, my suggestion - if you're concerned about your son writing cursive, but missing out on some of the "print" components of CHC, if you purchased this program, you could print the spelling words, or other selections using the Startwrite program (which btw, offers many font choices including the one taught by New American Cursive) so that your son could follow the program but continue working at his cursive.
Just throwing it out there for your consideration. Sounds like your year is going great! How wonderful!
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CatholicMommy
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Reading past posts, I noted the liturgical year issues. We start our school year at Advent (so just started the current school year 2 weeks ago!), so we are SO far off that way. But I find that it nice to cover some topics when it's not the "season" for it - providing extra reinforcement, more time to sit with and digest the information, the experience, the understanding that comes only with time and experience.
We are totally adapting the CHC lesson plans (1st grade here too!), but I do like to have them as a guide. We use Montessori as the basis for everything, then use OLVS religion lesson plans in place of the Faith and Life (we keep the prayer book and Picture Bible from CHC), Montessori and OLVS handwriting (cursive and at grade level), and a few other supplements as time allows. I just checkmark the boxes that we do, cross out and fill in any new/changed items, and call it good.
I have the 2nd and 3rd grade plans as well and I foresee continuing our pattern. We do have the CHC handwriting book - my son practices in it once in a while, but mostly we use the other items above.
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sunny
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| Posted: Dec 19 2009 at 10:03am | IP Logged
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Thank you for all of your responses and encouragement. I LOVE the StartWrite idea. At this time, I am on a very strict budget but as soon as that changes, I intend to look into it more closely. New American Cursive also offers a similar program but this sounds much better since you get more fonts! I dont know how they compare in price. I also wasn’t aware that OLVS offered cursive at an early age.
I am relieved to know that CHC is not as integrated as I thought and perhaps I didn’t make a GIANT mistake by beginning with cursive. One of the most compelling reasons I choose CHC in the first place was its adaptability, but at the same time, I personally LOVE to have a theme and have everything somehow tie into that theme. So I think that whatever I choose, I will always feel a conflict between wanting to do my own thing and wanting to make it all integrated.
As is typical with every other aspect of home schooling, it is a lesson in humility. I must let go of what is comfortable for me.
God bless!
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Paula in MN
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I have StartWrite too, and I love it. Here is a link to a free handwriting worksheet...
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sunny
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| Posted: Dec 21 2009 at 2:01pm | IP Logged
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Paula, I checked out the free one which is a great site for manuscript!! But for the cursive, the letters don't connect. Got me thinking...do they on the StartWrite?
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Paula in MN
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| Posted: Dec 21 2009 at 2:11pm | IP Logged
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Sunny, yes the letters connect on StartWrite. There are also several handwriting choices, as opposed to two on the free site.
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Paula
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: need curriculm advice
