I am thinking of using this for first grade curriculum with some modifications. Are any of you using it if so let me know what you think. During my research I like it but on one site I looked into it does not prepare students for college. I want my children to be prepared for university. I am wondering what LA you would use with this program?
If you like it, use it. First grade is a long way from preparing for college. Plenty of time to get ready! First grade doesn't really need grammar as such. The CLASS program already includes phonics, learning to read, spelling, handwriting... All that's needed is to point out that you use a capital letter for the first word in a sentence, and for proper names (people, pets, places). You use a period or a question mark at the end of a sentence. A sentence expresses a complete thought. That's about all you need to know in first grade. So what modifications are you thinking about?
I'm with Lindina. You don't need to worry about that quite yet! As far as language/grammar, however, I am amazed at how thorough Rod & Staff is! Don't know if they have a first grade curriculum or not. I started it with my younger two with 3rd and 5th grade, and it's AWESOME. My oldest never used it (though I am going to have her do the 6th grade book this year!). So my youngest one is bragging that HE can diagram a sentence, and his oldest sister CAN'T!!!
R&S doesn't start English until 2nd grade. CLE has what they call LA for first grade, but it's a lot of phonics for reading and spelling, and rapid recognition in reading, and putting a period or a question mark, using a comma after Yes or No that starts a sentence, "naming words", "action words", and "describing words" (but not calling them nouns, verbs and adjectives just yet), handwriting, spelling five words per lesson, and how to number a paper in columns.
I also like R&S. Excellent, but it doesn't start until 2nd. I haven't seen Christian Liberty, so I can't comment on it.
I love Rod and Staff Math and LA as well from what I have seen. I am torn betweeen the two honestly. I was going to modify CLP it with a different LA perhaps, another science and only some of the bible books. CLP has a heavy focus on God which is great to prepare students for catechism. We are not Catholic but we are preparing our children to serve the Lord so I think the curriculum will work. But I wanted to hear other perspectives.
I used some of CLP for my son when he was in 1st grade. I LOVED the science as it focused on God's creation and the science thereafter. I also loved the Nature readers. The History for Little Pilgrims was great as well. It focused history on Jesus...past, present and future. For the money, I thought it had some great bones. It definitely established a Christian world view, which is what we strived for early on as our educational foundation.
Christian Liberty is from the Reformed tradition. Lots of the books they use/sell but don't write/publish themselves come from the Presbyterian & Reformed, Crown & Covenant, and Canon Press publishers, and they use lots of Abeka and Bob Jones texts in their homeschool curriculum. They focus on the KJV Bible. CLASS in second grade starts using a choice of Bob Jones or Abeka English. You can use any of the CLP books with confidence. The only thing I don't like about some of the books is that there isn't a lot of specific TM help.
I use CLE Christian Light Education as my first choice for most kids. But I have and do use CLP Christian Liiberty Press for other kids/subjects when I think it seems to fit better. (I also use tons of other stuff!) It's confusing because Christian Light's website is www.CLP.org for Christian Light PUBLISHING because they have tons of other publications they put out besides school curriculum (tracts, Sunday School, magazines, books for all ages), but the other is Christian Liberty PRESS - so most of the time I refer to ChrLiberty as CLASS because of their Christian Liberty Academy Satellite Schools (which they were called originally) or Christian Liberty Academy School System (that they go by now). They do operate a b&m school at their center in Illinois, and operate a sort of umbrella or "satellite school" operation for homeschools where they'll keep your grades and do transcripts and such. "Back in the day" homeschoolers usually used to have to be a member of some sort of plan that got called "satellite schools" (ie my homeschool is a satellite campus of so-and-so School) enrolled under a real b&m school. BUT since real satellite-dish installations at people's houses became commonplace, and independent homeschooling is much more acceptable now, they don't use that terminology much anymore. It is my understanding that if you're enrolled under the CLASS plan, there are additional high school classes and options of curriculum that are not generally avaliable through their homeschooling catalog. So that's probably why OP's info from some other source that they don't prepare for university... but they do.
I started out with Christian Liberty Press at the beginning of this year for 1st and 3rd grade. I regretted buying most of it. The 1st grade Language Arts and math (Liberty) programs were a bust. They moved way too quickly. I wound up switching into R&S math and Language Arts several months into the school year, knowing this would cause us to have to work into the summer, but I felt it would be worth it, and was relieved when we switched. My daughter has excelled since then. We did finish the history and science, and I did like those. As far as the third grade program, I felt like a better teachers manual was needed for a full learning experience. Just doing a couple of workbook pages was not enough, IMO. I looked into buying the TM for the BJU English book they use, and it was $75. For $75, I could buy a whole new curriculum for English... so I did. I bought R&S English and switched into that, and loved it. We finished the CLP history and added another one (A Beka) since the CLP history for third grade was just fictional stories and I was a little unsure about using that alone. I did not like the 3rd grade science, so I bought A Beka science instead. We did finish the spelling and reading, and will do those next year as well. Basically, I wound up replacing most of the program with something else... it was very disappointing and I wasted a lot of time and money. I have another friend who wound up doing the same thing... replacing a lot due to the lack of instruction (TM's) in most subjects. I am not trying to insult CLP, but I really feel they need TM's for a full learning experience, and I don't mean like the Adventures in Phonics TM's (not much in them). If you really want to use CLP, the only subjects that I think would be okay are reading, spelling, history (for most grades, supplement 3rd), and possibly handwriting (didn't use it, but seems okay). If you were to purchase the TM's (from the actualy publishers) for English (and the other subjects that do not have TM's), that would be okay. Some of their math is good (Saxon or MCP, NOT Liberty math).
Thanks guys I did purchase CLP K math. The math program I am currently using does not introduce math facts at all. I know that it is only K and per our state standards children are not required to learn math facts until first grade. But I feel that math facts are the foundation, futhermore with a solid foundation other concepts will be easy to introduce. Anyway to make a long story short I ordered the K math with the TM. This got me looking at their Studying God's Word series. I really like that so I think I will purchase that as well.
