Great Home Ed Programs?

[BigPoppaBear]

Hi all,

Dad here...I teach my son (14) and daughter (9) at home and I can honestly say its the best thing I ever did as they have come on in leaps and bounds.

Anyway, I didn't want to open a thread on a discussion on home education verses mainstream - what I wanted to talk about was home education programmes and lesson structure.

Currently my children socialise with other kids by clubs, swimming and friends and their cousins so that's not really an issue its the lesson planning to be honest that has me a little perplexed. They use EdPlace educational software online which I found amazing and read books, do book reports, visit locations such as libraries, museums, historical places etc but its more of a structure and maybe some other online programs or videos on history, geography etc. I am looking for.

If I could find a KS2/KS3/KS4 lesson structure I would be laughing but I gladly soldier on as I love my kids dearly and want the best for them.

Anyone who's got any ideas about alternate online programs, workbooks, worksheets, videos or structure I am all ears. After all the best lesson my head teacher left me with all those moons ago was simple "If you don't know or don't understand...ask!"

Take care all,

BigPoppaBear

As you've noticed, there are tons of resources out there. I've found that, unless you want an American out of the box one (there are tons of American ones, I don't know of any British ones yet), structured ones are likely to be found subject by subject.

The only one I know and can recommend is MEP which is great for Maths, it has free lesson plans on the site as well as the sheets. If you join the yahoo group, or email MEP directly, you can get the passwords needed for the protected files. I personally buy the workbooks and read the lesson plans from my laptop (the books are really good quality and well priced. Primary books are £3 each, two per year, secondary is £4, again two per year, until GCSE when there are more books). It's designed for schools but easily adapted for home education I've found - I have a 9 year old who loves them and we chose together to go back a couple years to give him a greater foundation in maths and he is doing very well (it's meant to be a page a day, he does 2-4 per day and plans to keep doing so until he catches up to where he is and it becomes more difficult to do so. He got through a year's worth of books in about 5 months doing this and he's still going at that pace). You can try them on their website to see if they fit. My 6 year old, who is more artistically minded, has found them great as well.

There're these people - www.witsendcs.com/ - although I don't know anyone who has used them, I just know they exist.

I used a lot of Galore Park books as my dd2 got older - www.galorepark.co.uk/ - nice and straightforward to work through, you don't need a lesson plan as they're so easy to use.

Also definitely rate MEP for maths :)

Tbh, I wouldn't want to buy a whole out of the box curriculum, I always liked being able to pick and choose what to do, at what level, and at their own speeds. But I certainly appreciated the structure of having a Geography book, a Spanish book, etc.

It isn't a topic I have much knowledge about, but many of my friends are members of the forum "A Little Bit of Structure" and I should think you could get lots of recommendations there. I think it is quite a busy forum. alittlebitofstructure.webs.com/

I like Evan Moor products - we've just started using one of their English resources and it's going really well. We have also used their history pockets which are really good (if you like cutting/sticking/colouring!)

I would second Galore Park although I'm not keen on the writing aspect of their English books - my 3 need a bit more 'help' than being given a title!

Another resource my boys have enjoyed is History Odyssey from Pandia Press. We buy it as an e-book and they read off the screen what they need to do. It covers history and ties in literature with it.

I can second 'A Little Bit of Structure' - we're a really friendly bunch and have probably used most resources between us!

Have you asked your local lea? Education otherwise? Or maybe educational freedom?
We're autonomous so have never used a curriculum.
Sorry I can't be more help.
Good luck.

There's tonnes of stuff on the BBC website. There is a bitesize area that is arranged by key stage and has online activities, things to read and videos www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ . There are also lots of resources here: www.bbc.co.uk/education which include 'class clips' which are videos on pretty much any topic you could want. If you're stuck, and want to follow the 'old' national curriculum for History etc for KS2 and KS3, then there are lesson plans etc here (QCA): webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090608182316/standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes3/