I did get some feedback yesterday on some of my postings on Alpha Omega.  The main feedback was the cost of the programs and books.  This is definitely a prohibitive aspect of looking into their program.  There are definitely alternatives out there and I am building a list of some ideas there.  Also, Alpha Omega does have some free resources for Christian homeschooling.  If you look at both quality and price, I still think this is one of the better resources out there.  If price alone is your consideration, you will be able to find alternatives, definitely.  Good luck!

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One of the biggest fears of homeschool parents is how colleges will view home school based degrees and how to prepare home school transcripts.  I have to admit my two prepared transcripts were quite excellent looking, but I cannot take the credit.  The credit must go to Lee Binz.  Mr. Binz has put together some fabulous ideas for creating effective transcripts that give a clear picture of the academic success and rigor of your Christian homeschool program.  Fortunately for you all, Mr. Binz has an e-book out that I highly recommend purchasing if you are thinking about writing a home school transcript for your student.  This is not a review of Lee Binz The Easy Truth About Homeschool Transcripts, but I will say I do recommend it.  Some parents are paying consultants big bucks to write these, I think you can do it for the small cost of the e-book.  Check it outt.

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Many people talk about ‘classical homeschool’, but few actually know what it means.  Classical Christian homeschooling generally occurs in three stages: 1) the grammar stage (grades 1-6); 2) the dialectic stage (grades 7-9); the rhetoric stage (grades 10-12).  The grammar stage corresponds to the development of the brain that is soaking up as much information about ‘what is’ – very little interpretation takes place in this stage, because the mind is phisologically not developed for this cognitive area of learning.  The ‘what is’ part of the homeschool curriculum can be used as a base for future learning.  The ‘why’ and ‘how’ stage of classical homeschool education should occur during the 7-9th grades, but may be useful for advanced students in the 5th grade.  The final rhetoric stages includes in-depth learning of a variety of subjects, usually limited to: Arts, Literature, History, Language, Math, Oratory, Science, Philosophy, Writing, and Bible.

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One of the most frustrating things for me when I got to the US History part of my Christian homeschool curriculum was the terrible resources available.  The current trajectory of the dicipline of history is left-leaning historians writing revisionist history that goes too far in attacking Christianity’s role in the making of the United States.  I am not looking for a glossy portrayl of the situation, but every single textbook that I picked up was a little over the top in its condemnation or even worse subtle reproach of the role of Christianity in the making of the United States.  I didn’t want an entirely Christian view of the topic either, but something more balanced.  What I learned is that this was largely impossible.  This is one of the frustrating things of teaching Christian homeschool.  I am not looking to indoctrinate my children, but the unfortunately reality is that there are so few balanced curriculum sets for US History out there.  I eventually went with the Alpha Omega Curriculum
edition, just because of my luck with their works in other areas.  I cannot say that I was disappointed, but the whole experience made me want to develop my own history curriculum for Christian homeschools that provided a nice balanced approach.

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I’ve been using Alpha Omega Publications’ LIFEPAC mathematics curriculum for some time.  I figured I should give it an honest review on the blog first, since it was one of my first ‘purchases’ of their curriculum.  I especially like how the curriculum is set-up to include repetition, drill, and application.  I know that drill is somewhat passe, but from my experience a simple ‘application’ curriculum that avoids rote drill totally trulys affects the depth of knowledge of my students (my kids ).  The curriculum is set-up to allow both guided and independent learning.  This was the key for me.  I am never looking to fill up my child’s time with ‘busy work’, but independent learning is one of the best parts of homeschooling and you need a curriculum that supports that.  I also found that the early chapters do a good job mixing a seemingly ‘play’ mentality into education, which ‘tricks’ the students into learning (was good for my son with ADD).  This may be a difficult curriculum in the upper grades for parents who are totally clueless as to Algebra as the teacher’s edition certainly isn’t for the novice, but any parent with a working knowledge (even at the basic level) will have no problem wading through this curriculum

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One of the biggest trends in homeschooling is online instruction.  No matter how innovative and wonderful parents are as teachers, we cannot offer all opportunities to our children.  Online collaboration now offers a wonderful supplement to our existing curriculum.  One of the reasons you see the Alpha Omega ‘ads’ on this site is because I’ve had so much luck with them.  Granted, the stuff isn’t free, but it is top notch.  I tried to scrounge up my online homeschooling resources for free, but it took so much time and I often was using pure junk.  Part of the reason I created this blog was to help pay for these books .  In any event, I will be putting together my favorite books and pieces of homeschooling curriculum to help those just starting out.  I will also do a full review of some Alpha Omega products.

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Welcome to my new blog, Christian Homeschooling Help.  I am a mother of 3 children, two of whom successfully completed their elementary and secondary school education in my Christian homeschooling program.  I have one more ‘student’ working to complete his high school degree and head to college.  In this blog I hope to provide help and resources for other Christian homeschooling families.  Best of luck with your own Christian homeschooling curriculum, if you have any questions, please post them in the comments.

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