Has anyone used this before? It's a unit study curriculum... looks pretty neat. The site is learning-adventures.com, I believe.
I've never heard of it but I can't get it to open the page. I've tried numerous times so I don't know what's up.
I think I typed in the address wrong. It should be learning-adventures.org. So sorry!! It looks like a really fun, in depth unit study type of curriculum. It is year-long and covers most every subject fairly well from what I can see. I think I may add some more science experiments, just because DS loves them. And of course I'll have to add our math, maybe a foreign language if we decide to do one.
I only heard of it last year when we were starting "high school". I didn't want to TRY something so new (for us) at that stage. I wish I had heard of it when I started homeschooling, because it looks REALLY cool. I read that you can use it for high school, I was just too chicken.
I have used it. We did the first unit; skipped Egypt and Rome because we had already covered them so mainly it was the middle ages and Renaissance and Reformation...we did do some of the Early Explorers. The boys LOVED it. I felt it was quite mom intensive at a time when I am trying to get them a bit more independent. I think if I had started with this I might have liked it better...with Jazz a bit younger. It is also scheduled for 180 days...so I got to feeling a bit "behind" and felt like it left very few days for field trips, etc. I did like the books that it encorporates. (for the sections that we did) I did not feel like the science was "enough" but I do think that if you commit to doing it for a year or more; it would cover everything rather well. The cooking about did me in and I cut out a ton of that right away. I really liked the bible lessons in the middle ages...I can't remember where it was I stopped...when they started with the study of hymns; which I just couldn't get the boys into, but some may LOVE. We also didn't do their spelling...we kept with spelling power; but if you didn't have a spelling program that you love; I think it was fairly easy to follow. The author is very approachable and helpful; she answers e-mails quite promptly. I got the game...and we used it exactly one time. So I think it would be great for just starting out, or if you like to have things spelled out in detail. I think maybe not as much if you prefer to pull together things yourself and are a bit more student driven. Which you could also use it for; but only if you don't get hung up on the timetable. I had planned to use it for early explorers and oceanography in concert with our family vacation to the coast for two weeks but then I had surgery and our family vacation turned into dad and one kid for one week instead. sigh. best laid plans. So since I was couch bound and feeling like crap; we watched a lot of videos instead. Sorry for being so long on this; I would give learning adventures a solid B+.
Thanks for the review! Hearing other's experiences help so much. I did notice the 180 day schedule, but I don't mind skipping some activities so we can get the meat out of a few lessons in one day. That would leave us time for field trips and such. I do wonder, about how long did a typical lesson take each day? Right now a full day takes about 2-2 1/2 hrs (of actual work time, not if he's dragging his feet lol). I 'd like to stay around 3 hrs for fourth grade, a little more on experiment days. I don't think he should be doing 5-6 hr days until high school.
ack. time. so hard to judge. It all depended (and still does) on the boys motivation. The same stuff that they can get through in a few hours will take all day on whiny arguing days. ugh ugh. So, I think 4 hours (including math) is probably pretty close to a normal day for us...more if there was a writing assignment because they will drag their feet for ages on that. Some days I felt like we were done way too soon, and others had me looking at the clock; like "we are not going to get this done!" We did often do more than the assigned reading if we liked the book. (Door in the Wall and Adam of the Road both boys liked alot) The two year old might even be able to follow some of the read alouds. I was not able to find most of the books listed as supplemental; but our library is very small and not noteable. I did find books on all the subjects I needed...just not the ones listed. I think if I was going to do middleschool again with ds the younger...I would start with this curriculum; and just do the whole thing. The trouble is finding something that works but you are in the middle of it. The second part didn't work for us, because the boys wanted to get to WW2, but they don't have that. So I pieced together American History with Liberty's kids and Simple Schooling for the Revolution stuff. A quick overview (1 month) on the war of 1812; Lewis and Clark and some of that then another month on the Civil War, we are touching on the industrial revolution and WW1 so that WW2 will make sense. I am chomping at the bit to get there, because I have such great books picked out. (Audie Murphy - To Hell and Back; and The Hiding Place) Plus there are excellent movies too. Anyway. There ya go. oh, and we had excellent discussions as far as the bible portions go. It worked well for us. We didn't do much writing but we had these GREAT conversations.
That sounds very doable. I plan on letting him type/speak-to-type most of his writing during the first part of the year until he gets more comfortable with writing in general. He despises handwriting, so I am just taking a slow and easy approach. I'd rather him enjoy the process of developing a story than to agonize over putting it on paper. I think that will help keep our time down a little, too. If we enjoy it this coming year I plan on using it through the end of the program, whatever volume that ends on when we hit high school. If no other volumes are finished then we'll probably do MOH for 7-9, then really hit American history hard. But I will probably be doing some Amer. history every year anyway, just because DH feels that is extremely important. Anyway, that's the plan... and we all know how plans turn out! LOL Thanks!!
