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Bella
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| Posted: June 13 2007 at 7:21pm | IP Logged
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Just curious. I have used some CHC, and have sold some. I would like to hear how some of you who live a "Real Learning"life incorporate CHC into your day/subjects. Are there certain grades that you either love or leave out?
Thankyou for your time. 
Warmly,
Christy 
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 13 2007 at 8:03pm | IP Logged
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Hey Christy, we use CHC off and on for mostly the K-2nd grade years! I LOVE their First Communion Prep in the 2nd grade plans, along with Elizabeth's wonderful Notebook See My Ds's Here it's a great learning experience. We haven't used anything past 2nd grade here, but IMHO you can't go wrong for the price and the lessons are all laid out for you. They have worked very well as a *Spring-Board* for our Real Learning lifestyle
HTH! Blessings!
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JenniferS
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I really like the supplementals for 2nd grade and 4th grade. I don't use everything in the plans, but I get lots of ideas from them!!
Jen
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: June 14 2007 at 6:45am | IP Logged
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This post describes how CHC came to be in my home.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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J.Anne
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| Posted: June 14 2007 at 7:32am | IP Logged
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I carry the CHC catalog with me everywhere. I am anticipating some level problems, but wondering if the 2nd grade lesson plans are worth purchasing even if you are not going to use them as lesson plans. It includes 1st Communion prep and the tour of the continents, right?
OR, is it easy enough to swtich out books in their plans - meaning Math U See for MCP etc?
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Tina P.
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| Posted: June 14 2007 at 10:44am | IP Logged
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J.Anne wrote:
wondering if the 2nd grade lesson plans are worth purchasing even if you are not going to use them as lesson plans. It includes 1st Communion prep and the tour of the continents, right?
OR, is it easy enough to swtich out books in their plans - meaning Math U See for MCP etc? |
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The second grade lesson plans are definitely worth it for the 1st Communion prep. Tour of the Continents is fun, if you have the time. We use the math and science we choose in *whatever* CHC level we happen to be. I am not fond of what they chose in those two subjects. We rarely use the readers for reading comp. But we *do* sometimes use them for the saint or character-building stories. My oldest was put off by these stories, claiming that they were too "goody-goody."
What I most like about CHC is their approach to religious education, language arts and spelling, and history. However, they seem to cram history into a very small timeframe. You only get two weeks with each character or subject in history. And sometimes those two weeks must cover several characters over a long stretch of time. We loosely follow the plans on these subjects.
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Cheryl
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| Posted: June 14 2007 at 8:18pm | IP Logged
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I used CHC products for the first time this year. I got the plans for K and 2nd. I thought the 2nd grade plans were worth the money to me just for the 1st Penance prep. (Of course I was a complete sacrament prep newbie.  )
I used the LSFLF. Although I've heard some negative comments about it, I liked it. The stories are cute. The family in them is just like mine. We used spelling (without tests), grammar, Faith and Life and the MCP math. I plan to use all of these again next year. I bought the lesson planner because I'm going to write in my plans for my ds 8 and ds 6 as they won't be on the same weeks for some of the subjects and I also want to do 5 day weeks next year.
I didn't buy the suggested science books or the map skills. I ended up doing only North America and Antarctica of the Tour of the Continents. I'm am not sure what I'm going to do next year for science, history and geography.
I'd love to hear more about how you all use CHC. Do any of you combine it with FIAR or Sonlight or another history or science program?
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ALmom
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| Posted: June 15 2007 at 10:20am | IP Logged
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I use CHC in the younger grades - ie lesson plans, etc. I tweak quite a bit, but I do that with everything. One thing I know about CHC is that no matter what subject, I don't have to worry about content being inappropriate for my dc ages and it is thouroughly Catholic in the sense that it always reinforces and never detracts from the faith. It is always sweet and gentle to their spirits. That means a ton to me when I'm dealing with very young dc in a large household or lots of folks where I have to pick and choose discussion and cannot review everything completely. Everything else we've used, I have to watch for content that my dc aren't ready for or even worse, a presentation of faith that could be misinterpreted (not necessarily wrong, but the tone or the way it is phrased will tend to imply error - I think of some of the old catechesis stuff that I had to rephrase because I didn't want my dc thinking God's love was dependent on their being "good" or the more modern stuff that has pics of children in Mass and the pic is contrary to the instructions of the church or the information on the inerrancy of the Bible isn't clear enough on being without error in whatever the author intended - not just faith and morals). Then there were Catholic suppliers that had material that had a very Protestant overtone, and I was sometimes very disappointed in it. CHC is not always the most beautifully bound (though it appears that they are doing a lot to improve this in more recent editions), it was a breath of fresh air for us to see someone trying to really develop Catholic materials for today. I like to support that.
I love the religion supplements, art supplements, and even the 4th grade science has a great felt project for making the human body. Now I'm sure there are more detailed science materials out there, but this little book allowed my 4th grader a supplement to his regular science - something he read and did in 1 week and loved this part. I loved that there was no tracing, cutting, searching, etc. It was all ready to go for this craft impaired momma. All I needed to do was purchase the colors of felt my ds listed on our shopping list. One thing I wouldn't miss are the Catholic stories from Science. My dc loved those - and we are not particularly adept at science - it tends to be the avoided subject in our house.
I use the LOG, starting it whenever I think dc is ready and continuing at a slow pace until we are done with the series (which for some of mine may not be until 6th grade). This is not an overwhelming grammar, but imo it is thourough and allows time for me to integrate the lessons with whatever else we are doing so it sticks better and just isn't another workbook. We move on to either a Seton style grammar course, Grammar Plus or this year I'm trying Winston with one child who just struggles with grammar no matter what.
We have used a number of the Stories of the Saints, LSFLF (these readers start out with just one line on a page so my vision challenged children didn't get bogged down with their vision problems trying to track lines and lines of print while learning to read. It allowed them to accomplish what they so wanted to accomplish - to know how to read), and almost all the religion/saints based reading material - not always as assignments, but sometimes simply as an easy read for those wanting to know more about a particular saint. They are lovely. They are by no means my staple living lit., but my dc enjoy them. We read plenty of books all day, everyday. I have every collection of lives of Saints and then some so there are plenty of choices. Some of mine like something short and easy as a first look at a Saint. I know a lot of folks aren't interested in reading comp type workbooks - but we have simply read the stories with some of the youngers, used one as a jump off point for writing ideas (this was one of the middle school ones and they had tons of history related topics that sent my dd on a rabbit trail about American Indians), and in one case we needed to do a comp type thing as ds was having a lot of trouble understanding inferences in stories but was not one to like a lot of discussion or a lot of writing. This was perfect for him, and we did it one year and got him over the hump.
Generally, the CHC materials do not have any excessive exercises - just enough to do a thourough job getting the concept. My dc who hate to write and are overwhelmed by most busy and crowded with print materials, absolutely took to these.
We substitute Singapore Math for MCP and just write in level and page numbers right in the CHC plans. I jot down any extra reading dc do in the elementary books (mostly with the younger, early readers where I use CHC plans). For the olders, they keep their own page assignments and booklists, but we do some things from CHC plans, some from Kolbe and some of my own making - and many times whatever the child has found inspiring/ child has tweaked to help make things work - with mom and dad's approval, of course. I go to Emmanuel books and order easy reading history books and found MacBeths site for science (we also add in a Kolbe textbook when the dc are older cause I don't know the vocab very well to use it naturally) and my dc read these and make notebook pages for history (not artsy at all, simply date, info that they were interested in, maybe a short paragraph depending on the age and file in a 3 ring binder in chronological order. The older ones make me a timeline. I do use From Sea (Ignatius Press history they recommend at some point) but am flexible on age used. We will be using it with my 5th grader as per his request - but I have a fortune in living books to go along with it. This year for science, I am loosely following the Science 123 - but planning to use Montessori charts that I bought used and my own books to read. I'm not sure I would have bought the book, but back when CHC first came out, it was one of my purchases, one year and I have it so I use it. CHC isn't full of so much cluttered work that you cannot find time to fit in things, yet it makes sure I cover the bases somehow - even if I use some other materials in some subjects.
I really, really love their quotes - they are right there in the front of the plans, I cut them out and laminate them and put them in a basket for dc to chose the quote to copy, memorize, etc. I add in any Saints quotes that come my way, but CHC gives me a starting point. I also love their character cards. These are really worth it and we try to work on these as a family. I find it amazing how many of the things that should be so basic, are deficient. Thanksfulness for my youngest might be remembering to say Please and Thank-you at table, but I need to remember to express my gratitude to God, so again, this is a jumping off point to expand for our family.
By 4th grade, I am no longer using the plans as such, but find that I do supplemental materials, use some of their recommendations and things are from everywhere in those middle years. By high school, we are doing Kolbe with major modifications and substitutions. CHC is one of the few places that has some suggested material for looking at vocation in upper middle school.
I must say, I come back to CHC again and again, though I use it more as a jump off point - which is, I think, what the authors intended. I love that they do all the copying and printing out for me so all my dc have to do is cut, and do the projects how they want to do it.
There are reminders to do things like take your dc outside for a walk or play ... many of those childhood games. I usually need more help learning/being reminded of how essential this is as I tend to be more bookish/academic - I like lists, everything listed in chronological order, etc. and CHC helps me remember the magic of early childhood and not to rush things. I find that CHC fits easily with whatever style you chose - because it is not overbearing, nor does it take hours and hours to do.
Janet
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Tina P.
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| Posted: June 15 2007 at 11:08am | IP Logged
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Cheryl wrote:
| I'd love to hear more about how you all use CHC. Do any of you combine it with FIAR or Sonlight or another history or science program? |
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Part of the reason I didn't like CHC science is because they reviewed things (space, human body) that we'd done IN DETAIL before I'd ever heard of CHC. And goofy me, I felt I had to *grit our teeth and get through*  the entire book. It bothered me that I paid so much money for something and wouldn't have to use at least 50% of it. CHC science, imho, is too light. It's funny, isn't it, that you can so plainly see where a family's (who writes curriculum) interest lie by how they plan their school year? It was obvious to me that this family had no inclination toward natural sciences. For several years, we floundered. I think in hsing terms it's called interest-led learning. Sounds better the way hsers describe it than how I just did.  This past year, we started occasionally using Stratton House kits. They're a lot of fun and instead of drowning one in information, they help a child to want to seek more on his own.
Between these kits, we do nature study/gardening.
TOPS kits sound like fun too, but we haven't ventured there yet.
For history, we're a little crazy. We mainly follow the spines of the CHC texts with our own twist, but we also fill in with MODG texts and often go off on rabbit trails. We started ancient history using History Links. We love it, but it gets *really* deep sometimes for my kids and there are many references to the CCC that I have to translate (when *I* know what the CCC means, that is ). I plan on using it again when the oldest is well into high school level work.
Sick baby. Have to go. Hopefully this has helped, Cheryl.
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Lisbet
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I personally feel CHC's lessons plans cannot be beat when it comes to preperation for the sacraments, so beautiful and solid, and gentle. I believe it really touches the childs heart.
That said, I'm venturing into Catechesis of the Good Sheperd method for my 3,4, and 5 year olds next year. I will use CHC for my first communicant next year agai though.
As for the rest of CHC, we've used it alot in the past. It's been too 'light' for one of my students (by far!) and too much for another. I do not like the middle school academic plans at all. It will be perfect for my K'er next year, and how she tends to learn. I do feel CHC fits a family that yearns for a total CM lifestyle but cannot figure out how to practically implement that with the busyness of lots of littles. (Read: My family! )
In a nutshell, I think that the lesson plans used to fit from about K-3 are really great, and that is probably how we will use them from here on out.
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J.Anne
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| Posted: June 15 2007 at 1:19pm | IP Logged
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I'm not sure if this needs a new thread (since I didn't even start this one...) but what about A Year with God? I have looked at that, but the price keeps me away. Is it worth it?
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SuzC
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This may need a second new thread ...but several have mentioned using CHC in the early years and then switching in middle school. What did you switch to? Is there a curriculum that you found to be a natural transition from CHC?
I have a CHC middle schooler (I always thought of 6th being the first grade of MS, but CHC starts with 5th) and I find myself looking at MODG and Seton, because I know they've graduated "strong" students (hopeful for a scholarship or two down the road ). CHC doesn't have the years behind it for proof, but I'm not ready to abandon ship.
Advice?
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Elizabeth
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Suz,
I moved your question to a new thread.
Jennifer,
I think there is a Year with God thread going somewhere. I'll search for it a little later.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Bella
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 3:45pm | IP Logged
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Thankyou Ladies!
I have enjoyed reading your replies, and appreciate your time!
Meredith-Thankyou for sharing your ds's First Holy Communion notebook. I am in awe of the richness,thoroughness, and innocence displayed!
Elizabeth- Thankyou. I completely understand how CHC fits into a very *real* life.
Janet-Thankyou for taking the time to really explain in detail how your experiece has worked-or not-for your family..and why!
Tina-Thankyou for the science links!
Warmly,
Christy
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 5:14pm | IP Logged
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You are welcome Christy, so glad I could help!
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Meredith
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: What do you like about CHC?
