Christian Home School Curriculum - What you need to know before you buy!
There are many publishers who offer Christian home school curriculum. In order to help with the selection process, here are some general overviews on a few of what’s available.
A Beka Book Christian home school curriculum offers materials for pre-K - twelfth grade, including many supplements. A Beka’s philosophy is conservative, protestant and patriotic. Their approach to education is traditional with drill, repetition, and memorization. A Beka Book offers many workbook activities which are full of color and, except for the amount of seat work involved, nice to use. In specific subject areas A Beka Christian home school curriculum comes with lesson plans and teaching tips. The workbooks, in many subjects, are not reusable. Personally, I enjoy the emphasis based on Biblical truths in the science program. I highly recommend the Biology textbook with older children. Because of the amount of reading and writing activities, I would recommend using A Beka Christian home school curriculum for the advanced student who likes a no-nonsense approach to learning www.abeka.com
Alpha Omega Publications offers a variety of approaches in their Christian home school curriculum. First, there are series of ten workbooks in a kit called Lifepacs for each subject. You place you child in the appropriate starting point within each subject area, then students complete one Lifepac at a time taking tests on what they mastered before moving on to the next. Alpha Omega Christian home school curriculum offers grades k-12, including Bible. Lifepacs enable your student to work independently, although I recommend much parent involvement in the elementary grades. Using Lifepac materials for teaching an independent, self-motivated student who doesn’t need much hands-on activities, would work great. They now offer Switched On Schoolhouse, a Christian home school curriculum which is a computerized version of the Lifpac material for grades 3-12. Call (800) 622-3070 for a catalog.
Another great publisher of Christian home school curriculum is Bob Jones, now called BJUP. Much like A Beka, BJUP is designed colorful and well presented but with much less busy work. There is also a strong Biblical teaching throughout the courses. BJUP Christian home school curriculum teaches how to read in kindergarten with a formal phonics program in which beginning concepts are introduced through 12th grade.
Families with only one or two grade levels to teach will find BJUP very helpful. With a large family, it is hard to get through all the material in the textbooks efficiently. www.bjup.com.
Choices for popular Christian home school curriculum also include Christian Liberty Press, one of the pioneers in the field. CLP offers affordable, conservative, Bible-based, education because they view their role as one of ministry. You can either enroll in their correspondence course, or purchase materials separately. In order to decrease the cost further, they have begun publishing their own books under the CLP umbrella. Streams of Civilization is an excellent two-volume set for history for Junior & Senior High. www.christianlibertypress.com
For more information on Christian home school curriculum, there are many local support groups which you can connect with and get personal recommendation on all the resources available.
In this article I have only touched the surface on a few of the more well known Christian home school curriculum publishers. A great way to educate yourself further is to check out any Cathy Duffy resource book. She gives reviews that are excellently written for all school subjects. Also, look up Rainbow Resources, which is a huge catalogue filled with valuable advice and some of the best prices you’ll find for Christian home school curriculum. I hope this was helpful.