Calvert homeschool acadamy??

Question

does anybody use or have in the past used Calvert... if you have what did you like/dislike about it. if disliked what curriculum do you use now?

Answer 1

With Calvert , you either love it or hate it. It seems to me like it has so so much involved that is not necessary. K 12 is a better curriculum in my opinion. Much easier to follow and understand .

http://www2.k12.com/getk12/index.html

Answer 2

We used Calvert with one boy in 4th and fifth grade.  We have not used the advisory program, however, we do have the tests that are for the advisory service.  The tests are a nice review.  One of the nicest things about Calvert is that it has one main lesson plan book that assimilates all of the various subjects (except for math which does have its own lesson plan book) into daily lesson plans in one main teacher's manual.  (TM) This reduces the amount of flipping through TM after TM that occurs with other complete programs.  Calvert chooses a mixture of textbooks and workbooks from various publishers including works by the school's own founder, Hillyer.  I find much of what Hillyer wrote to be dry and boring, especially his children's book on history for 4th grade.  Calvery Math, however, is a very good incremental (not spiral) program which adds objectives slowly onto each other and uses clear explanations.  The publisher choices for the grades I have seen (I have peeked at the books for other grades, too) vary from wonderful to dry.  What do you do when you get a book you or your child don't like? That is the trouble with Calvert, yet I suppose this is the trouble with all complete programs that choose the books for you.  Still, if you are willing to struggle through what you do not like or supplement/set aside (only possible if you do not get the teacher advisory package) what you do not like, Calvert has the clear advantage of simplified lesson plans.  One con to these great daily lessons is that you do not have much room to make notes if you decided not to do something suggested in the daily plan.  There is a supply list given for that day, a lesson number and a list of the books used and pages to be completed followed by the explanations of the lessons in each subject.  Not every subject will be covered every day in most grades.  If the student doesn't complete every subject on the day the plan says to do it, you may find it difficult to add in notes to yourself to tell where the child left off the next time the subject is covered.  This leaves no time for the flexibility of doctor appointments, field trips, and so forth.  The extra sets like the art set and the science set are highly over priced.  I would not suggest that you purchase these in any case.  If you could find a Calvert grade level set that you need on Ebay, that would be super!  Perhaps some things would be used but you would not be paying high new prices for things you might not like or be able to use with your child.  I loved the lesson book but I often scratched through the plans and wrote my own beside them.  I used the scholastic level for the boy but I have seen the academic level.  The only difference I saw was that the academic level gives the child more work to do to keep him busy.  When does a child get to be a child?  It is also very diffecult to help a child who is at different levels in different subjects.  That is an extremely high price to pay for materials you will have to ommit or supplement!  Occassionally, I ran into issues with the world view of the publication; evolution in the history books (how is a theory history?) or politically correct statements in the science books. (the good environmentalists were trying to help people understand how bad dams are for the environment) Some of the opinions being taught as facts were downright laughable and yet some of what is taught (grammar book, for example) is very well done!

What am I using now?  We still have the textbooks as supplements but we use a Christian unit study called The Weaver.  We can go up or down in objective levels as the children need, many children can be taught at the same time from one manual (not many one manual for every grade) and all the subjects stem from the bible lesson taught that day.  This suits the kids and I very well.  The site below has a board where you can ask questions from other moms who use it, if you want.  We still use Calvert math for 5th grade without supplementation, however, the repetition in the book is typical of public schools.  Since I know the student, I do not need to take him through reviews to see how much he forgot over the summer.  He skipped the extensive review and is now learning new concepts in chapter 5!  YES, FIVE!  That means that he will be ready for the middle of the sixth grade book before the school year ends.  Personally, I am uncomfortable with canned materials because there are no canned kids.  All that said, Calvert is good for what it is; a secular education package with high academic standards and as much assistance as the parent is willing to purchase.  If you would like more opinions on Weaver or Calvert or other curriculua, go to the lowest link.

Answer 3

We tried the whole Calvert curriculum for my daughter's first and my son's second grade and tried a bit of third grade. We continued to use the math packages for a couple of years. What I liked is that it is a complete package so I knew that all the language arts, math, history, etc. were being covered. I also like knowing when the day's work is done.

What I don't like is that you are locked into a single grade even if your child has abilities that span various grades. We didn't finish the grade when his reading took off and far surpassed the readers. There is also a lot of copying and writing, which didn't work well for my son who is a bit behind in handwriting skills. I liked the math, but he started the fourth grade math when he was 7. The fourth grade math curriculum switches from a workbook to textbook format. It was too much writing for him, so I switched to Singapore which I'd used in the past.

Now, we use a mix of materials from Sonlight, Story of the World, Seton Press, Singapore and Horizons Math and others. I've tailored it to meet each of the kids' styles.

Answer 4

noooooooooooooooo