| | |  | Babies | Home » » 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing the Right Educational Philosophy for Your Child's Learning Style | | | | | | | Description: | | The key to successful home education, homeschool veterans will tell you, is determining your educational philosophy and marrying it to your child’s learning style. Then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right educational curriculum for the child. This is the formula for success. In 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, homeschool guru Cathy Duffy can help you accomplish these critical tasks. Cathy will give you her top choices from every subject area, approaching everything through a Christian worldview perspective. This book is a critical volume for the homeschooling community. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780805431384
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Cathy Duffy | | Paperback:
| 320 pages | | Publisher:
| B&H Books | | Publication Date:
| February 01, 2005 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0805431381 | | Package Length:
| 11.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.9 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 58 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Must read for homeschoolers even if curriculum is not an issue!Feb 27, 2010
After reading about 12 books on homeschooling and homeschool curriculum, this was the FINAL and best book. I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK EVEN IF YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT CURRICULUM YOU WANT TO USE! This book saved me from going completely insane. After deciding to homeschool, I immediately began to look at curriculum; this has taken about 9 months. Before reading, throw out what all of your 'friends' have told you that you need to use.
This book helped me evaluate exactly what I wanted to accomplish in my schooling. After determining this, Duffy helps you to determine what style is best for what you want to accomplish. For example, what was best for me was unit studies. Based on the questions you answer and the points assigned, you will have a ranking for each style of teaching. You evalute what type of learner you are. She gives non-meaningful names to the different types but it is easy to pick yourself from a list of traits. For example, I was a Wiggly Willy. You then evaluate what type of learner your child is/children are. I have a Wiggly Willy and Competent Carl #these are gender neutral names#. By evaluating this, you are able to determine which curriculum will work best for your child or children.
She then has a chart of the different curriculums divided by subject and areas. She gives a number ranking in several different categories for each curriculum. Basically, I had to look at my child's learning style and see which had 5's or 4's. It also tells if the curriculm has Christian teaches #Catholic, Protestant, etc# or if there is no Christian teaching. The other things she ranks: independent study or one-on-one, amount of writing involved for student, prep-time, grade specific or multilevel, ease of use for teacher, if the teacher's manual is 'really' needed or not useful, if it supports Charlotte Mason philosophy or classical.
Lastly, she gives her review of each of the 100 curriculums so you can actually read more about which curriculum you have decided is best for you. She even tells you what you really need and don't need plus the average price. This may sound a little complicated but it is not at all. It is very easy and laid out nice and organized for us novice homeschoolers. I wish I had started with this book first.
The only not so great thing I found about this book is it did not help me evalute pre-school programs for my almost 4 year old. So, if you are only looking for pre-school info, don't even bother with this one. Otherwise, it was fantastic!!!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Must have for 1st timers!Aug 28, 2009
This book is very valuable. I am homeschooling for the 1st time and was simply overwhelmed by the many many choices of curicula. I ordered this book and it took about 3 months to work through it. It is not only a top pick book but also a workbook for figuring out your own teaching style and your child's learning style. I went to my first convention already knowing what I was looking for and would have been lost had I not read this book first. I recommend it highly!
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Good IF you are looking for fundamentalist Christian choicesAug 15, 2009
This would be a great book if only she had offered some secular choices. The book was well organized. I love the intro on learning styles and there's a great chart that summarizes all her choices (although I wish she had indicated age appropriateness).
I am Christian, but this book was definitely written for fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers. I am a first time homeschooler and the book was useful in selecting the subjects that are more secular by nature - like reading & math. And while I like her Charlotte Mason approach to science and history, I was dissapointed with the lack of non-Creationist choices. If you are looking for Creationist choices, this would be good. If you are looking for secular science and history, this book is not for you.
20 of 28 found the following review helpful:
 book with an agendaAug 14, 2009
I was looking forward to this book but early on came across such statements as:
1. (In schools) "they learn that all gods are created equal and that it is intolerant to expect others to accept your beliefs about God".
2. "Evolutionary theory is shaky at best."
3. "For example, I agree with most of the California goals or standards for third grade mathematics, but I do not agree that children at this age need to be learning probability and graphing."
Since I read these all early on it made everything else that came after that extremely suspect. The reviews were *very* skewed towards a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.
Completely incompatible with anyone homeschooling primarily for academic reasons but I can see it being a good resource for someone homeschooling for primarily religious (Christian) reasons.
BTW - this would have gotten a much better review if it had a more descriptive title such as "100 Top picks for Homeschool curriculum for the the *Christian* Homeschooler". Unfortunately it's a bait and switch because you don't find out until you open it that it's written from such a skewed, one sided perspective. Theoretically it could have some good info and reviews in it, however I found myself just completely unable to trust the source in anything (especially subjects like science, math, world history etc.) after the early remarks.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 kindle edition reviewJul 06, 2009
I've wanted to get this book for a long time. I don't have anything new to add to the other reviews, except for this: don't buy this in the Kindle edition. The charts are very difficult to use because they span two pages (so, since the Kindle shows only one page at a time, you can't tell which product the lines on the second page refer to) and are printed in very faint "ink". The charts refer to the page number where you can find the entire review for each product, which is useless when dealing with Kindle "locations" rather than actual pages. Very frustrated with this product. May have to buy the print version as well.
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