I am homeschooling my 15 yr old with all Abeka and I was considering changing her curriculum for next year or perhaps pick and choose from different curriculum out there. I was thinking the curriculum was too heavy for her but when I asked my daughter to check what's out there with me she said why? Whats wrong with Abeka. I said nothing I just thought you may want other curriculums where you don't have to watch long videos. She said, I love Abeka I feel part of a school 🤣🤣🙄 so there you have it! A review from my 9th grader.
Hi, I know this might seem strange coming from a total stranger. However, I am in the process of enrolling my 16 year old daughter, through homeschool with Abeka. She has mostly attended physical private school campuses in the past. But due to our transition to a new state, and late school enrollment. Abeka seemed like the better route, plus I was very familiar with their establishment being that all of her past private school's used their curriculum. One of my personal concerns I have is that there isn't any student community groups for high school students. I would really appreciate it, if you can give us any or all recommendations. I really feel like social interactions and study support groups are really important. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you & God bless.
Yes 🙌🏼 so glad to see another positive video about Abeka. So many RUclipsrs diss Abeka without truly using the program. It doesn’t need to be expensive or time consuming!! Their learning to read and phonics are second to none. Now, I will admit their older grades are a bit too much work for our family, but K4-2nd is SO good! Plus their teacher manuals/charts have great resale value!
I don’t get the Abeka hate! It’s not a curriculum I use - I’m really passionate about classical education as a pedagogy and we are SO happy with Memoria Press - but it seems like it gives kids a very solid education. I also hate this fear of hard work some people seem to have, lol. I love my kids having lots of time in the day (and like you I don’t do everything!) but I also think there’s nothing wrong with making education a significant part of our day 🎉
Yes! I’ve homeschooled using only Abeka for 14 years. It’s a solid curriculum, and I can honestly say that I love it for the open and go, and straight to the point, presentation that it has. I have four children, so it is easy to use with multiple grades needing taught. The worksheets, in the younger grades, are especially colorful and engaging. My only hiccup with Abeka has only been since we began using the videos for high-school. ( We never used the videos until 9th grade.) We really struggle to get through all of the videos and it has become extremely expensive. Thank you for sharing that one must NOT complete everything that Abeka has at the buffet table! This is so important for each family to understand!
Yea I can see how for HS it might be more challenging and time consuming. Something to definitely consider when choosing curriculum for the upper grades. But again, you can always use just one or two subjects! ❤️ thanks for watching!
I love abeja I think is a great curriculum but is time consuming and my son hates all the extra review. I being thinking to use just the work book as an open and go but I’m scared and I feel that is necessary to do everything that the plan lesson says. What is your advice? My son gets distracted easily but if I get his attention he learns fast. Do you think that just doing the book will be enough?
Thank you so much for this video! This is my first year using Abeka and as soon as I got the curriculum I was immediately overwhelmed 😅 Thanks for easing my mind ❤
Yaay for Abeka! We are currently using Abeka for our Kindergartener and 1st grader. We use it for Phonics/Language, Spelling, Handwriting, Arithmetic, and Social Studies. We use something else for Science and Faith. We finish our daily work in less than 2 hours, I love it! I love that it's straight to the point, and like you I pick and choose what parts of the lesson plans we feel like doing. After a few lessons, you come to know what is truly benefitting your child, and over working him or her with extra fluff is not it! ☺️ Social studies I like to use as a spine and add library books to make it more "Charlotte Mason". We also added Mind Benders this year to add an element of logic, which works! In the future years I might tweak the handwriting and Literature, but I'd love to keep everything else as it's working. I love buying second hand at my local homeschool consignment store, have been finding Abeka books for $5-$30 and that's a huge win for me!
That’s so awesome you can find them locally for such a good deal (I usually have to find them on eBay or Facebook). But yes, totally make it your own and find what works for you and skip what doesn’t!! 😄😄
Abeka has served us very well. We’ve done K4, K5, 1, 2 full set curriculums. Starting grade 3 this year we made changes and brought in a blended mix of curriculums while still using Abeka for some subjects. I think there is a benefit to being exposed to curriculum written by different publishers. My girls have asked to stay with Abeka too when we’ve tried trials of other curriculums. Great job debunking the myths Lauren! I really enjoy your content!
We've done K5, 1st and 2nd. This year we briefly switched to TGATB and Gather 'Round midyear and came sprinting back to Abeka. Lol. Those curriculums are beautiful but Language Arts and Phonics are severely lacking in Gather Round. And while I love how TGATB incorporates art and geography and is absolutely beautiful it just isn't enough for my children either. My children really thrive in Abeka. I'm glad there are those options for other families, but we are Abeka Lovers here :-)
Great video! My husband graduated from Abeka. We chose to use it with our daughter and we are just finishing up her first grade year. (We also did kindergarten) I love that you mentioned that we don't have to play by the whole book, that's the beauty of homeschool. We do accredited videos and books right now with my daughter being young. We don't always use the art given in the book, we do different things for art class and not all the seatwork is necessary.
I snagged some Abeka Readers at a used bookstore and discovered that my son LOVES them! He prefers reading those over chapter books at this time. They are SO good too!
I think you touched on most of the common myths I’ve heard, and actually thought myself. We are using Abeka for language Arts only. I plan on keeping this as our long term LA program, because my child seems to really be retaining the information. We are doing this along with the LA video lesson. It’s definitely a faster pace than she is use to, but it’s nothing wrong with a little challenge if they can handle it. I’m so glad you said you don’t have to do everything! Thanks for sharing!
We will be starting with Abeka this year. Thanks for your review. It makes me more excited in using Abeka for 23/24 school year. This will be our 4th year homeschooling our 3 children (2nd grade/girl and 4th/6h grades boys. Our homeschool style is traditional. Good to know that this curriculum is. Again... Thanks!😊
I've always wanted to use Abeka and this is my first official year of homeschool. I wish I had started with the Abeka full out but my kids are so far enjoying using TGTB... I might use it next year since I still like it so much ... you're right, it doesn't have to be expensive! I want to use the videos and they actually have monthly payments in order to afford it and it's still less than private school significantly! Thanks for this video
Ehh, if they’re enjoying and learning with TGTB it’s not necessary to make a change. But I know what you mean about wanting to do something different. I’m in that boat a lot haha
We have two children doing Abeka Accredited. I buy it during the sale in the spring and we do monthly payments and it's about $220/ month. It's a lot, but like you said, less than private school and my children are receiving an excellent education. I highly, highly recommend Abeka. I've tried TGATB and it is a beautiful curriculum, but in my honest opinion it doesn't compare to Abeka. At all. My kids did learn from TGATB, but they learn significantly more from Abeka. :-)
I used Abeka all of my high school. I agree you don’t have to buy ALL the things. We’re using the K4 program and figured out quickly the writing portion isn’t for us. So we switched to the Good and the Beautiful handwriting. Game changer. The phonics is so good.
Abeka worked for one child, but not my other child. My son loves all the straightforward facts (like you said cut & dry), but my daughter is very hands on and it doesn’t work for her. He enjoys Abeka science and history! It’s nice to hear the positives about Abeka 👏
Learning dynamics is PHENOMENAL fr in order to teach a child to read. I’ve tried many many plans and that is the one that proved true with all my kids. In 3 weeks they were all reading
I'm doing 2nd grade ACCREDITED and it is definitely way too time consuming with very little wiggle room for missing due to appointments or sickness. If you are doing accredited you WILL have close to an 8 hour school day just like public school. I regret going this route because I experienced this exact same thing with Lincoln Learning program (actually LL was worse) with the amount of time involved. I seem to be the only stressed out homeschooling mom in my circle. Everyone else is taking a much more relaxed approach. I'm switching to independent next year.
I'm doing 1st & 2nd Grade Accredited and it is a lot, but I promise you get more used to it and find ways to make the days faster! :-) Abeka is an exceptional program and children in it generally test 1-2 grades above public school students. All the people saying "we cut this out", or "we don't do that" aren't really receiving all the benefits of the curriculum. Not trying to sound rude. Just saying. It is a rigorous program, but with structure & discipline it is doable. You do have to be I'm not going to lie, it is a lot and I'm stressed too. Especially my first year with Abeka! However, after trying other Curriculums (for a couple months) they don't even compare to Abeka and my children and I wanted to come back to Abeka. We came back to Abeka and we're sticking with Abeka. :-)
@@jessisblessed6689 have you considered doing unaccredited? especially since you have a 1st and 2nd grader. being stressed doesn't sound good tbh. i have a 2nd grader and Kinder =)
@r d Yep, I've considered it. But I like the accountability and discipline that comes with the Accredited program. I also like having actual report cards. I know the unaccredited program works well for many and that's great. At this time it's not what I'm looking for, but thank you! :-)
I love abeka and the traditional way it is laid out. That is the type of curriculum that sparks my children's and my interests. The Charlotte mason stuff is nice but it really stresses me out with how relaxed it is, I like to know my children are getting a good education, and not be wondering in the back of my mind if what I'm doing is enough.
We used this curriculum for English and Literature in the High School I went to. None of us, especially the ones of us that actually liked to read and write, enjoyed it. The teacher made us do all the activities and homework assignments, which sometimes took well over an hour every night. You're right about your buffet analogy. To me, all the extras tempt the teacher to take a "quantity over quality" approach to teaching. And that's not what a homeschooling family is typically looking for. I guess what I'm saying is if your child likes this curriculum, is doing well and learning from it, you might as well keep them in a traditional school... it's the same.....
Not at all the same. And the whole point of this video is that you don’t have to do everything they offer - you make it your own. Some families like traditional curriculum and this works well for many homeschoolers. No, it’s not for everyone, but it’s a huge stretch to say if you like Abeka, you may as well go to regular school.
Well, you are very positive talking about it but in real life it is much much harder ( I did Abeka Academy k4 and k5 with my daughter. This year we started The Good and the Beautiful what a difference completely different perspective of learning. Homeschool should be not a school at home but I believe something more..
I wasn’t referring to Abeka academy. Although I have no experience with it, I do know enough about it to know that it is much different than parent led, which is much more flexible and what I am talking about in all of my videos.
That's the thing, I find that the people who like Abeka are not doing the accredited program. That is like bringing the classic Prussian style of learning into your home and many don't want that. I'm a new homeschooler and we went with Abeka accredited for 2nd grade and it's too much. I may as well have sent him to school. We have close to 8 hour work days sometimes. If I continue abeka I'm definitely doing independent next year. I'm going to look into TGTB because you have the same mindset about schooling that I do, not trying to bring the traditional classroom into my home.
@@cfoster6804 We are so happy with The Good and the Beautiful, also I just ordered Christmas around the world from Gather Round curriculum, so excited. Gather Round is amazing curriculum as well, Charlotte Mason style.
I think homeschool “should” be whatever works for a particular family. For some, that looks like for school at home. For others it looks different. It is as varied as the different curricula out there. 😊 I lean more toward CM which works wonders for my oldest son but my daughters lean heavily towards worksheets. They absolutely love them so I use them 🤷🏾♀️😊💖
It really really depends on how it’s done. It makes ALL the difference in the world. It you go by the book on every subject, yes it’s a LOT. But the glorious thing is, we don’t HAVE to!
Love hearing your thoughts on this! I’m so glad we switched to Abeka phonics … but I am glad I didn’t use it first because I needed to learn how to pick and choose 🤣
This year we got the Arithmetic 1 and Language 1, and use them as supplements/fillers while I go between kids, as I’ve basically seen in your videos! I really like their books, but don’t have their lesson plans at all. I also wanted to try their 1st grade social sciences books, but already had other things. If I have time at the end of the year, I may grab atleast the safety & manners.
A Abeka only teaches through memorization but does not motivate STEM or logical and creative thinking. I have teached using Abeka and it was boring in primary school it teaches the same thing every year … same topics only adding more info.
I’m doing Abeka 4th year. This year I have a 1st grader and 4th. The amount of work/books for 4th grade is A LOT in the full curriculum. I buy the video set with books for whole year. I don’t make my daughter do all the books. For example, there is like 4 science books. One of them is all about birds/plants. I did 4 year college and never needed to know or don’t even know that stuff so I don’t think I need to torture my kids with it 😃 I do the main science book only. Same with math. There are 2 books and 1 of them is more like extra practice, so we stick to one book. Copying spelling list daily - I also reduced that. The tests and quizzes - we only do some if I feel it’s necessary to review. My younger in 1st grade finds it extra easy. All the work in 1st grade takes him like a minute to finish worksheet. Also, lots of work but it’s not hard. The reason we stick to Abeka is because their books are colorful and engaging for kids, they are very organized for every lesson. The videos are extremely helpful. Every new concept in language or math is explained and showed in simple way. My kids do schoolwork themselves most times and at end of the day, I double check that they didn’t miss anything. We also noticed that when something is more challenging, our kids tend to do better and stay motivated. Therefore, we plan to go with Abeka for 24-25 year as well. Note: My sister did Abeka kindergarten for her son and sent him to public school for 1st grade. Her son is so bored in school because he knows everything already they are learning. She’s planning to take him Abeka for 2nd grade and on. I’d say Abeka goes ahead by at least 2 years compared to our local public schools.
My brother & I had Abeka 1-3 (no kindergarten) and are great readers and have been from the start. My other brother and sister had no Abeka and aren’t as good at reading.
My 5th grader will be $1200 for abeka academy plus books and my 7th grader will be $1400 The good and the beautiful is AMAZING for younger kids. We love it and we like abeka
I love abeka but I find myself saying I wish someone would do a homeschool overhaul on their material and make it more friendly for our general flow. I'm someone who needs the lesson plan and all the whistles that go with it because I'm afraid of missing something. I do however make it my own because there is just way too much in there for a regular week. Also the things like all the images with school buses and stuff I feel like could be adjusted. We switched back again to tgatb for math because abeka is just too much since we do all their LA pretty by their book. I like what tgatb does by updating as the need fits but I do think they don't come close to Abeka's phonics. Which is why we power through 😆 We do love their science and geography, but I also added tgatb history 1 this year. Thanks for another great video!
I like that I don’t have to buy every book for every subject in order for my kids to learn. My eldest is going into first grade and I didn’t buy all the reading books because I already have beginner reader booklets and books. I already have notebooks for writing so I don’t need the writing tablets or writing with phonics book. Speed drills and tests for math? Not necessary. Videos? My kids get enough TV time already and I don’t want it to go past what it’s already at. Anyway, I love Abeka and it’s what I did as a kid but you don’t need to get EVERYTHING they offer.
What do you mean when you say some Abeka is more ahead and some is public school standard? Do they have one curriculum for homeschooling and one for Christian School? I am wondering because I have a friend who is sending her child to a Christian school this year after having been in public school. He is supposed to be starting 5th grade this year and after taking the placement test at the Christian school, he is still going to start 5th grade. I know Abeka is more advanced than public school so I have to say I am a little surprised that he didn’t have to go back to 4th. I am glad he didn’t as I know that would be very discouraging to him, but wondering if you can explain.
I am homeschooling my 15 yr old with all Abeka and I was considering changing her curriculum for next year or perhaps pick and choose from different curriculum out there. I was thinking the curriculum was too heavy for her but when I asked my daughter to check what's out there with me she said why? Whats wrong with Abeka. I said nothing I just thought you may want other curriculums where you don't have to watch long videos. She said, I love Abeka I feel part of a school 🤣🤣🙄 so there you have it! A review from my 9th grader.
Hi, I know this might seem strange coming from a total stranger. However, I am in the process of enrolling my 16 year old daughter, through homeschool with Abeka. She has mostly attended physical private school campuses in the past. But due to our transition to a new state, and late school enrollment. Abeka seemed like the better route, plus I was very familiar with their establishment being that all of her past private school's used their curriculum. One of my personal concerns I have is that there isn't any student community groups for high school students. I would really appreciate it, if you can give us any or all recommendations. I really feel like social interactions and study support groups are really important. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you & God bless.
Maybe she wants to go to an actual school and meet other kids and learn to socialice.
Yes 🙌🏼 so glad to see another positive video about Abeka. So many RUclipsrs diss Abeka without truly using the program. It doesn’t need to be expensive or time consuming!! Their learning to read and phonics are second to none. Now, I will admit their older grades are a bit too much work for our family, but K4-2nd is SO good! Plus their teacher manuals/charts have great resale value!
I agree!
Hi, would say it's a good Idea for first time homeschool student, 16 year old?
hi there, i wanted to recommend readingeggs as well.
What curriculum would you recommend for grades 3 and up then?
I don’t get the Abeka hate! It’s not a curriculum I use - I’m really passionate about classical education as a pedagogy and we are SO happy with Memoria Press - but it seems like it gives kids a very solid education. I also hate this fear of hard work some people seem to have, lol. I love my kids having lots of time in the day (and like you I don’t do everything!) but I also think there’s nothing wrong with making education a significant part of our day 🎉
Yes! I’ve homeschooled using only Abeka for 14 years. It’s a solid curriculum, and I can honestly say that I love it for the open and go, and straight to the point, presentation that it has. I have four children, so it is easy to use with multiple grades needing taught. The worksheets, in the younger grades, are especially colorful and engaging. My only hiccup with Abeka has only been since we began using the videos for high-school. ( We never used the videos until 9th grade.) We really struggle to get through all of the videos and it has become extremely expensive. Thank you for sharing that one must NOT complete everything that Abeka has at the buffet table! This is so important for each family to understand!
Yea I can see how for HS it might be more challenging and time consuming. Something to definitely consider when choosing curriculum for the upper grades. But again, you can always use just one or two subjects! ❤️ thanks for watching!
I love abeja I think is a great curriculum but is time consuming and my son hates all the extra review. I being thinking to use just the work book as an open and go but I’m scared and I feel that is necessary to do everything that the plan lesson says. What is your advice?
My son gets distracted easily but if I get his attention he learns fast.
Do you think that just doing the book will be enough?
Thank you so much for this video! This is my first year using Abeka and as soon as I got the curriculum I was immediately overwhelmed 😅
Thanks for easing my mind ❤
Yaay for Abeka! We are currently using Abeka for our Kindergartener and 1st grader. We use it for Phonics/Language, Spelling, Handwriting, Arithmetic, and Social Studies. We use something else for Science and Faith. We finish our daily work in less than 2 hours, I love it! I love that it's straight to the point, and like you I pick and choose what parts of the lesson plans we feel like doing. After a few lessons, you come to know what is truly benefitting your child, and over working him or her with extra fluff is not it! ☺️ Social studies I like to use as a spine and add library books to make it more "Charlotte Mason". We also added Mind Benders this year to add an element of logic, which works! In the future years I might tweak the handwriting and Literature, but I'd love to keep everything else as it's working. I love buying second hand at my local homeschool consignment store, have been finding Abeka books for $5-$30 and that's a huge win for me!
That’s so awesome you can find them locally for such a good deal (I usually have to find them on eBay or Facebook). But yes, totally make it your own and find what works for you and skip what doesn’t!! 😄😄
Abeka has served us very well. We’ve done K4, K5, 1, 2 full set curriculums. Starting grade 3 this year we made changes and brought in a blended mix of curriculums while still using Abeka for some subjects. I think there is a benefit to being exposed to curriculum written by different publishers. My girls have asked to stay with Abeka too when we’ve tried trials of other curriculums. Great job debunking the myths Lauren! I really enjoy your content!
Thank you so much, Holly! I like mixing and matching curriculum too…keeps it fresh haha
We've done K5, 1st and 2nd. This year we briefly switched to TGATB and Gather 'Round midyear and came sprinting back to Abeka. Lol.
Those curriculums are beautiful but Language Arts and Phonics are severely lacking in Gather Round. And while I love how TGATB incorporates art and geography and is absolutely beautiful it just isn't enough for my children either. My children really thrive in Abeka. I'm glad there are those options for other families, but we are Abeka Lovers here :-)
Great video! My husband graduated from Abeka. We chose to use it with our daughter and we are just finishing up her first grade year. (We also did kindergarten) I love that you mentioned that we don't have to play by the whole book, that's the beauty of homeschool. We do accredited videos and books right now with my daughter being young. We don't always use the art given in the book, we do different things for art class and not all the seatwork is necessary.
I snagged some Abeka Readers at a used bookstore and discovered that my son LOVES them! He prefers reading those over chapter books at this time. They are SO good too!
Nice!!
In the beginning of my homeschool journey Abeka was high on my list of curriculums I wanted to try! Love that you are debunking these myths Lauren!
Thank you!! ❤️
We also love Abeka, the quality is amazing. We opt for the videos and only use L.A. and Math, love love the teachers, especially Mrs. Heindel. :)
I think you touched on most of the common myths I’ve heard, and actually thought myself. We are using Abeka for language Arts only. I plan on keeping this as our long term LA program, because my child seems to really be retaining the information. We are doing this along with the LA video lesson. It’s definitely a faster pace than she is use to, but it’s nothing wrong with a little challenge if they can handle it. I’m so glad you said you don’t have to do everything! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching! Glad it’s going well for you (we like their LA too ☺️)
We will be starting with Abeka this year. Thanks for your review. It makes me more excited in using Abeka for 23/24 school year. This will be our 4th year homeschooling our 3 children (2nd grade/girl and 4th/6h grades boys. Our homeschool style is traditional. Good to know that this curriculum is. Again... Thanks!😊
Glad it was helpful and best of luck ❤️
I've always wanted to use Abeka and this is my first official year of homeschool. I wish I had started with the Abeka full out but my kids are so far enjoying using TGTB... I might use it next year since I still like it so much ... you're right, it doesn't have to be expensive! I want to use the videos and they actually have monthly payments in order to afford it and it's still less than private school significantly! Thanks for this video
Ehh, if they’re enjoying and learning with TGTB it’s not necessary to make a change. But I know what you mean about wanting to do something different. I’m in that boat a lot haha
We have two children doing Abeka Accredited. I buy it during the sale in the spring and we do monthly payments and it's about $220/ month. It's a lot, but like you said, less than private school and my children are receiving an excellent education.
I highly, highly recommend Abeka. I've tried TGATB and it is a beautiful curriculum, but in my honest opinion it doesn't compare to Abeka. At all. My kids did learn from TGATB, but they learn significantly more from Abeka. :-)
I used Abeka all of my high school. I agree you don’t have to buy ALL the things. We’re using the K4 program and figured out quickly the writing portion isn’t for us. So we switched to the Good and the Beautiful handwriting. Game changer. The phonics is so good.
Same here! My girls love TGTB handwriting
Thank you for the encouragement to think outside the box.
Abeka worked for one child, but not my other child. My son loves all the straightforward facts (like you said cut & dry), but my daughter is very hands on and it doesn’t work for her. He enjoys Abeka science and history!
It’s nice to hear the positives about Abeka 👏
Yup, they’re ALL different! Gotta do what works best for each child
Learning dynamics is PHENOMENAL fr in order to teach a child to read.
I’ve tried many many plans and that is the one that proved true with all my kids. In 3 weeks they were all reading
I'm doing 2nd grade ACCREDITED and it is definitely way too time consuming with very little wiggle room for missing due to appointments or sickness. If you are doing accredited you WILL have close to an 8 hour school day just like public school. I regret going this route because I experienced this exact same thing with Lincoln Learning program (actually LL was worse) with the amount of time involved. I seem to be the only stressed out homeschooling mom in my circle. Everyone else is taking a much more relaxed approach. I'm switching to independent next year.
Good idea! You want to enjoy your homeschool and you’re children and not feel like it’s controlling and consuming all of your time.
@@mermer9575 I too am am doing Abeka 1st grade unaccredited and we scratched 1 hr off by not doing all the “reviews”. 😅
I'm doing 1st & 2nd Grade Accredited and it is a lot, but I promise you get more used to it and find ways to make the days faster! :-)
Abeka is an exceptional program and children in it generally test 1-2 grades above public school students.
All the people saying "we cut this out", or "we don't do that" aren't really receiving all the benefits of the curriculum. Not trying to sound rude. Just saying. It is a rigorous program, but with structure & discipline it is doable. You do have to be
I'm not going to lie, it is a lot and I'm stressed too. Especially my first year with Abeka! However, after trying other Curriculums (for a couple months) they don't even compare to Abeka and my children and I wanted to come back to Abeka. We came back to Abeka and we're sticking with Abeka. :-)
@@jessisblessed6689 have you considered doing unaccredited? especially since you have a 1st and 2nd grader. being stressed doesn't sound good tbh. i have a 2nd grader and Kinder =)
@r d Yep, I've considered it. But I like the accountability and discipline that comes with the Accredited program. I also like having actual report cards. I know the unaccredited program works well for many and that's great. At this time it's not what I'm looking for, but thank you! :-)
I love Abeka. I also use reading eggs as a supplement for my little ones. These two together are working well for my kiddos .
I love abeka and the traditional way it is laid out. That is the type of curriculum that sparks my children's and my interests. The Charlotte mason stuff is nice but it really stresses me out with how relaxed it is, I like to know my children are getting a good education, and not be wondering in the back of my mind if what I'm doing is enough.
We used this curriculum for English and Literature in the High School I went to. None of us, especially the ones of us that actually liked to read and write, enjoyed it. The teacher made us do all the activities and homework assignments, which sometimes took well over an hour every night. You're right about your buffet analogy.
To me, all the extras tempt the teacher to take a "quantity over quality" approach to teaching. And that's not what a homeschooling family is typically looking for. I guess what I'm saying is if your child likes this curriculum, is doing well and learning from it, you might as well keep them in a traditional school... it's the same.....
Not at all the same. And the whole point of this video is that you don’t have to do everything they offer - you make it your own. Some families like traditional curriculum and this works well for many homeschoolers. No, it’s not for everyone, but it’s a huge stretch to say if you like Abeka, you may as well go to regular school.
Thank you so much for this video! We tried switching to monarch and NOPE! ABeka is far superior! My 10 year old loves it.
Well, you are very positive talking about it but in real life it is much much harder ( I did Abeka Academy k4 and k5 with my daughter. This year we started The Good and the Beautiful what a difference completely different perspective of learning. Homeschool should be not a school at home but I believe something more..
I wasn’t referring to Abeka academy. Although I have no experience with it, I do know enough about it to know that it is much different than parent led, which is much more flexible and what I am talking about in all of my videos.
That's the thing, I find that the people who like Abeka are not doing the accredited program. That is like bringing the classic Prussian style of learning into your home and many don't want that. I'm a new homeschooler and we went with Abeka accredited for 2nd grade and it's too much. I may as well have sent him to school. We have close to 8 hour work days sometimes. If I continue abeka I'm definitely doing independent next year. I'm going to look into TGTB because you have the same mindset about schooling that I do, not trying to bring the traditional classroom into my home.
@@cfoster6804 We are so happy with The Good and the Beautiful, also I just ordered Christmas around the world from Gather Round curriculum, so excited. Gather Round is amazing curriculum as well, Charlotte Mason style.
I think homeschool “should” be whatever works for a particular family. For some, that looks like for school at home. For others it looks different. It is as varied as the different curricula out there. 😊 I lean more toward CM which works wonders for my oldest son but my daughters lean heavily towards worksheets. They absolutely love them so I use them 🤷🏾♀️😊💖
This is helpful. I've heard all of these things and then was told it is rigorous from a homeschooled teen. I just don't want so much desk work.
It really really depends on how it’s done. It makes ALL the difference in the world. It you go by the book on every subject, yes it’s a LOT. But the glorious thing is, we don’t HAVE to!
Love hearing your thoughts on this! I’m so glad we switched to Abeka phonics … but I am glad I didn’t use it first because I needed to learn how to pick and choose 🤣
O that makes total sense! 😄😄
How did I miss that you are a second generation homeschooler?😊 That’s so cool.
Ahh I guess I didn’t clarify well…I used Abeka in a Christian school from k4-12th 😊
@@thepracticalhomeschooler Oh gotcha! Now that you say that…I think you’ve mentioned that before. It’s the one where your daughter is going, right?
This year we got the Arithmetic 1 and Language 1, and use them as supplements/fillers while I go between kids, as I’ve basically seen in your videos! I really like their books, but don’t have their lesson plans at all. I also wanted to try their 1st grade social sciences books, but already had other things. If I have time at the end of the year, I may grab atleast the safety & manners.
Awesome! I planned on doing a safety and manners one (I think 2nd grade) one summer but never got around to it 🤦🏻♀️
A Abeka only teaches through memorization but does not motivate STEM or logical and creative thinking. I have teached using Abeka and it was boring in primary school it teaches the same thing every year … same topics only adding more info.
I’m doing Abeka 4th year. This year I have a 1st grader and 4th. The amount of work/books for 4th grade is A LOT in the full curriculum. I buy the video set with books for whole year. I don’t make my daughter do all the books. For example, there is like 4 science books. One of them is all about birds/plants. I did 4 year college and never needed to know or don’t even know that stuff so I don’t think I need to torture my kids with it 😃 I do the main science book only. Same with math. There are 2 books and 1 of them is more like extra practice, so we stick to one book. Copying spelling list daily - I also reduced that. The tests and quizzes - we only do some if I feel it’s necessary to review. My younger in 1st grade finds it extra easy. All the work in 1st grade takes him like a minute to finish worksheet. Also, lots of work but it’s not hard. The reason we stick to Abeka is because their books are colorful and engaging for kids, they are very organized for every lesson. The videos are extremely helpful. Every new concept in language or math is explained and showed in simple way. My kids do schoolwork themselves most times and at end of the day, I double check that they didn’t miss anything. We also noticed that when something is more challenging, our kids tend to do better and stay motivated. Therefore, we plan to go with Abeka for 24-25 year as well.
Note: My sister did Abeka kindergarten for her son and sent him to public school for 1st grade. Her son is so bored in school because he knows everything already they are learning. She’s planning to take him Abeka for 2nd grade and on. I’d say Abeka goes ahead by at least 2 years compared to our local public schools.
If you don’t mind, can I ask how long the school is per day and how long your child spends doing homework? I have a 2nd grader and a kindergartner.
How helpful are the teachers manual for math?
My brother & I had Abeka 1-3 (no kindergarten) and are great readers and have been from the start.
My other brother and sister had no Abeka and aren’t as good at reading.
My boys are in going into 6th and 8th grade and love Abeka. We have tried other curriculums but they always ask to go back to Abeka.
My 5th grader will be $1200 for abeka academy plus books and my 7th grader will be $1400
The good and the beautiful is AMAZING for younger kids. We love it and we like abeka
Yes the academy will definitely be more $$. But definitely not a requirement…especially to do Abeka on a budget
I love abeka but I find myself saying I wish someone would do a homeschool overhaul on their material and make it more friendly for our general flow.
I'm someone who needs the lesson plan and all the whistles that go with it because I'm afraid of missing something. I do however make it my own because there is just way too much in there for a regular week. Also the things like all the images with school buses and stuff I feel like could be adjusted.
We switched back again to tgatb for math because abeka is just too much since we do all their LA pretty by their book.
I like what tgatb does by updating as the need fits but I do think they don't come close to Abeka's phonics. Which is why we power through 😆
We do love their science and geography, but I also added tgatb history 1 this year.
Thanks for another great video!
Yes I agree about the lesson plan books…although I think level 1-3 aren’t bad, but could definitely be a little more user friendly
I like that I don’t have to buy every book for every subject in order for my kids to learn. My eldest is going into first grade and I didn’t buy all the reading books because I already have beginner reader booklets and books. I already have notebooks for writing so I don’t need the writing tablets or writing with phonics book. Speed drills and tests for math? Not necessary. Videos? My kids get enough TV time already and I don’t want it to go past what it’s already at.
Anyway, I love Abeka and it’s what I did as a kid but you don’t need to get EVERYTHING they offer.
New follower here! Question... what did you use for Prek? Abeka or The Good and the Beautiful?
We used TGTB but I have used just the k4 workbook from Abeka too ( just not the whole program)
I know Singapore math uses. Classroom lesson plan on their homeschool edition so I believe it’s not just Abecca!!! We haven’t used it yet!!!
O ok, I didn’t know that about Singapore!
What do you mean when you say some Abeka is more ahead and some is public school standard? Do they have one curriculum for homeschooling and one for Christian School?
I am wondering because I have a friend who is sending her child to a Christian school this year after having been in public school. He is supposed to be starting 5th grade this year and after taking the placement test at the Christian school, he is still going to start 5th grade.
I know Abeka is more advanced than public school so I have to say I am a little surprised that he didn’t have to go back to 4th.
I am glad he didn’t as I know that would be very discouraging to him, but wondering if you can explain.