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How much damage am I doing by switching back and forth?
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I have been homeschooling for a year now. I have a 6th grader, a 3rd grader and a 1st grader. I began by ordering 2500.00 dollars worth of Abeka materials. A month later I sold it all and began SCM’s guide. Then at the beginning of this school year I switched to AO instead. Now, half a year into it I find that I prefer SCM after all and I want to switch back. One of the things I’m worrying about is where they are in their history lessons because I would be switching it yet again. To throw even one more loop into this, I may not get to homeschool next year if we find ourselves in “language school” for training with the International Mission Board. Language school is usually a year long and they have teachers that use Abeka with the children while the parents are in training. Should I just stick it out the rest of this year with AO and then whenever the next year comes that I can begin homeschooling again, take up SCM? Any advice on how to handle the history transitions/changes?
I don’t know if this helps, but I am kind of in the same boat. I did Mystery of History last year, started this year with AO, then decided I wanted my kids (4th and 1st) in the same history cycle so just switched to SCM a couple weeks ago! I hate going back and forth and feeling like I’m ‘messing up’ history cycles. What I chose to do was pick the cycle my oldest was at in AO (Renaissance/Reformation) and do the corresponding SCM Module (4) with both kids—ordering most of the books, but not all.
The switch hasn’t been too hard because all I switched was history—we’re still following our AO schedule with most other things. For next year, I’m using the CM planner SCM sells to combine what I feel works best for my family from both AO and SCM. For ex., I like that SCM does less Shakespeare per year and will incorporate probably 1 play per year instead of AO’s 3 per year. I prefer AO’s composer schedule and will use that. I will pick our favorite lit. books out of each, etc. More work planning, but worth it to have books we enjoy more and a pace we can handle.
If you many not even homeschool next year, I would personally just switch over areas that are not working well and keep the rest the same for ease of transition. If things are going well overall, I would probably just keep things as is and make a switch next year. Just my .02:) Gina
First off, I’m not sure of the ages of your kids, but it helps to keep in mind that most schools go through a history cycle once. I know that I had 1/2 term of SC state history, 1 year of geography, 1 year of American history, 1 year of world history and then govt/economics. That’s it. I never studied Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance/Reformation – not in high school or in 2 years of college. All that to say, whatever my kids are getting is way more than what they would get in school.
I started w/ Sonlight (pre-k), AO (1/2 of year 1), HIFI (remainder of year 1 and year 2) and am now using SCM very happily. The changes were difficult, for me, not my daughter.
I simply add in other favorite books. I love that we are all together. I love the simplicity. I love that we will get through history more thoroughly twice than I did once. I love the freedom I now feel when we decide a book isn’t working and we put it aside for another, before I would continue to trudge onward just to finish it.
I know it is stressful, but it’s less stressful to change what isn’t working than to muddle through, IMO.
Hope that helps.
Christie
Whew…..this thread makes me feel so much better. We have switched around A LOT!! with history. I too love doing it together and I like the SCM curriculum suggestions. I also love being able to use books that we like and easily switch things around if needed. It has just taken me a few years and lots of trial and error to get to this point.
Oh, and I think that the ability to change things around is actually a blessing. If my children were in “school” they would have to just “grin and bear” what ever was scheduled. Different children are going to react differently to some subject matter. Being able to tailor your studies is the best part of homeschooling, in my opinion 🙂
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