Note about Robinson Curriculum

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  • suzukimom
    Participant

    Just wanted to mention this, and as the Robinson Curriculum has been mentioned on a few threads today, I thought maybe I’d catch anyone interested best by making a new thread.

    I did have a look at the Robinson Curriculum today for a while… and if anyone else is looking into it – the technology on the CD’s is fairly old, and the books are in a tiff (picture) format.  There is a similar, larger, curriculum based on Robinson that is more up-to-date, has more resources, and the books are in .txt or .pdf called A2 (A-squared)… and it is 1/2 the price.

    I haven’t bought or tried either one, and am not recommending it – but just thought anyone interested would like to know.

    mom2fourboys
    Participant

    A2 (A-squared) curriculum sends out a really nice sample cd of their program. I think it cost a buck or two to cover shipping. The format was very easy to use and the books were nicely done. Their program included a lot more than just books.

    A couple of months after receiving the A2 demo cd, I found the Robinson curriculum for $50 at our local homeschooling store. I also had a 50% off coupon for one item. So, I recieved the whole Robinson curriculum set for $25. It was a great deal, but I was still extremely disappointed with the format of the books. Almost all of the books were just “picture” copies of the books. They were very difficult to read. I also found the program very difficuly to navigate through. I would have been really upset, if I paid full price.

    Just my 2 cents… 

    Tammy

    suzukimom
    Participant

    Here is the Robinson Booklist with links to free copies of almost all of the books.  The curriculum has you read them in order….

    http://homeschoolfreestuff.wordpress.com/books-for-reading/robinson-booklist/

    Michele Barmore
    Participant

    Here is another place for lots of free books

    http://users.gobigwest.com/rosegate/RCbooks.html

    We have a kindle and have downloaded almost the entire RC list from Amazon onto the kindle for free.

    There is no need to buy the RC discs– it’s all on the Internet — for free.

    The only thing missing is the how to book written by Mr. Robinson– which I will admit is very good.

    jmac17
    Participant

    Thanks for these links.  We rely a lot on ebooks, so this gives me so many more resources.  There is so much material out there that it’s hard to know where to start, so lists like these are wonderful.

    Joanne

    Rene
    Participant

    We’ve been doing the Robinson Curriculum for several months now and are loving it!  I originally was not planning to buy the cd’s as I just couldn’t afford it, but through the yahoo group I was able to obtain a used set for just $25.  I’ve not actually printed any books from it other than the Course of Study.  We have a Kindle and so far have just used that.  I do like having the cd’s though, knowing I can print a book if I need to.

    The Course of Study *is* very good but the booklist and most of the books can be obtained free online, and the basic gist of the curriculum can be understood from reading Dr. Robinson’s website and from the yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RobinsonUsers4Christ I have found the yahoo group to be immensely helpful.

    Sue
    Participant

    We had considered the Robinson Curriculum several years back, but I’m not sure how we would have adapted it for my autistic son. It’s likely I would have either made a lot of adaptations and/or chosen other materials for him. Instead, we ended up with our brief foray into unit studies with KONOS–it worked nicely at the time, given our circumstances of a sudden, unexpected move a couple of months after school began. (I still miss that big, fat unit book at times….still love searching the library catalog for CM books, though!)

    At the time, I remember seeing somewhere that if you were in a difficult financial situation, you could write to them, offer what you could pay (or nothing at all, if need be), and they would still send you the cd’s. I thought that was wonderful if someone had need for curriculum but had fallen on hard times.

    @Rene (or others who use Robinson), how well does the curriculum go along with CM methods? I believe they are using living books, right? I’m especially curious as to how their history compares to CM-aligned curricula such as AO or the SCM modules. Also, does he recommend narration?

    Rene
    Participant

    He does not incorporate narration, but a parent could add that in if they wanted.  I’m still new at it, but the books don’t seem to follow any particular order, other than increasing in difficulty.  There are lists online that others have created using his booklist and they’ve put the history in chronological order, or they’ve ordered them according to grade or reading level. Dr. Robinson advised that they were just to read through the books in the order listed.  There are tests for a few of the books, and he had vocabulary words for the books that the student is to memorize.  We haven’t delved into the vocab words yet.

    There is a mom on the yahoo list who has modified Robinson to fit her family and has mixed it with CM.  They do Robinson in the morning, which is reading, writing (or copywork), and math.  Then in the afternoon they incorporate some CM elements: picture study, composer study, nature study, etc. Here is a blog post of hers about it: http://thesimplelifeof8.blogspot.com/2011/05/rc.html

    Dr. Robinson recommends 2 hours of math, 1 hour of writing, and 2 hours of reading.  I love sticking with these basics, but we don’t stick to those times, as of yet anyway. We currently do 1 hr of math, 30 minutes writing, 1 hr of reading and then we add in some other things we feel is important like a daily read-aloud time, typing, etc.

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